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Posted by admin in " RIAZ THE SHAITAN OF PAKISTAN, Asif Zardari Crook Par Excellance, Corruption, CROOKS, CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY, Economic Hitmen, Economy, FINANCIAL TERRORISTS, Focus 24/7, Rape of Pakistan, Scams & Frauds Under Crooked Govts on January 16th, 2021
AN INSIDER’S CONMAN JOB!
The Reporter’s Diary
Islamabad, January 15: Successive governments and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) made questionable payments of atleast US $32 Million to different companies in Broadsheet scam from 2008 till now without challenging the re-instatement of companies which were dissolved in 2007.
Government of Pakistan (GoP) also paid millions of dollars as fees to the lawyers in addition to the US$32 Million questionable payments to Broadsheet which had links to a few important people in Pakistani power corridors. How many million dollars have been paid to lawyers internationally and locally by GoP and NAB remains a well-guarded secret in the scam.
“I had been requesting the relevant people to challenge the re-instatement order of Broadsheet in Isle of Man but no one was interested,” said a well-placed source, adding, “unless the money is distributed, how will people get their share.”
Disbursement of atleast US $32 Million include payment of US $1.5 Million to Broadsheet, $2.2 to International Asset Recovery (IAR) and US$ 28 Million to reinstated Broadsheet.
“In addition to US$1,500,000 paid to or to order of Mr. James under the Settlement Agreement, NAB paid US$2,250,000 in settlement of the claims by IAR, also in about 2008,” reads an order of settlement in the case.
The first tranche of questionable payments were made when Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) was in power, Navid Ahsan was Chairman NAB and Sardar Latif Khosa was Attorney General of Pakistan.
Sardar Latif Khosa later represented Broadsheet LLC in Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2018 to seek access to Volume 10 of Joint Investigation Team (JIT) report to be used to assess the quantum of damages sought in the international arbitration.
Zafar Ali, QC
Imran Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan
It is surprising that settlement was made with Broadsheet without due diligence by GoP and NAB in 2008 despite the fact that the company was dissolved in April 2007. The fact finds mention in the settlement order in following words:
In addition, Mr. James began to negotiate a Settlement Agreement with NAB represented by Mr. Soofi representing that he, Mr. James, was authorised to represent Broadsheet, notwithstanding (and without disclosing) that the company was in liquidation and was recently formally dissolved.
Naveed Ahsan, Former Chairman NABThe Settlement Agreement was authorised for NAB by an executive decision in which Mr. Soofi was not involved. There is no evidence as to who the decision makers were. The Governor of NAB at that time was Mr. Ahsan.”
The settlement order gives details about dissolution of Broadsheet, raising fundamental question why re-instatement was not challenged in Isle of Man either by GoP or NAB.
“When the ARA terminated in Oct./Dec.2003, Broadsheet was a trading company registered in the Isle of Man. Mr. James was its executive chairman and controlling shareholder. Mr. Tisdale was involved in its affairs by virtue of being Mr. James’s legal adviser, and Mr. Tariq Fawad Malik effectively was its local representative in Pakistan. On 19 May 2003, the company’s former legal adviser in Jersey obtained a default judgment for outstanding fees in the sum of about £29,000 (“the Sinel judgement”). On 1 April 2004 the Sinel judgment was registered against Broadsheet in the Isle of Man. Winding-up proceedings against the Company based on non-payment of the judgment debt were commenced in the Isle of Man in February 2005 and a Winding-up Order was made on 2-7 March 2005. On 2 April 2007 the company was formally dissolved. Meanwhile, Mr. James remained active in business and/or financial affairs in the USA. On 4 January 2005 he purported to assign to a Colorado company, Steeplechase Financial Services LLC, “all his right, title and interest in … connection with [the ARA]” signing the Assignment as chairman of Broadsheet and ‘Manager’ of Broadsheet. He did not notify NAB of the Assignment nor did he communicate with the Liquidator who was appointed in the Isle of Man shortly afterwards, in February/March 2005.”
Interestingly enough, when the questionable payments were made a year later to a company dissolved in 2007, the damage claims were again accepted in 2009.
Second payment of atleast US $28 million was facilitated in December 2020 when Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf led by Prime Minister Imran Khan was in office.
A senior government official with knowledge of the case said a number of questions need to be answered as to who facilitated payments to Broadsheet once again in December 2020 when clear instructions were given by Attorney General office to keep “bare minimum” cash in accounts of Pakistani missions abroad.
Public Accounts Committee and Foreign Affairs Committee of National Assembly of Pakistan have ordered probe in the broadsheet scam.
Answers to a few of the following questions can expose a few characters who facilitated payment of atleast US $28 million to Broadsheet through Pakistan High Commission bank account in London:
1. Why such a big amount was lying in Pakistan High Commission’s account when arbitration was ongoing and instructions were passed to keep bare minimum cash in bank accounts for official use?
2. When the amount of US $28 million was transferred to High Commission’s account and for what purpose? Who authorized transfer of funds to account of High Commission?
3. What had been the average Monthly balance in High Commission’s account during last 36 months?
4. How Broadsheet came to know about huge balance in High Commission’s account and specific account number to ensure implementation of damages claim?
5. Why diplomatic immunity was not invoked and if invoked at what stage and when?
6. Does it prima facie not seem an arranged and corroborative move to facilitate Broadsheet to recover the money?
Posted by malika in Announcement, Focus 24/7, PTT Announcements on May 10th, 2013
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Posted by admin in Focus 24/7, Uncategorized on November 25th, 2012
On Saturday, dressed in an identical green satin tunic which she made herself after discarding the bloodstained one she wore last year, Tarana attended Ashura day ceremonies at the same shrine.
The day before, police announced that they had arrested two Taliban insurgents with suicide vests who planned to attack the Shiite worshippers.
“I’m not scared,” Tarana told AFP as she sat with her sisters in their spartan home in Old Kabul ahead of the ceremony. “I know there will be danger but I will go back there anyway.
“After the shrine I will go to the graveyard to pray for my brother who died and other members of the family.”
Tarana’s only brother — aged nine — was among many of her relatives killed in last year’s blast, and Tarana and her two sisters were wounded. She was the only one of the children who went back.
Despite her brave words, Tarana wrung her hands anxiously and the mood in her home was more one of preparing to go into battle than attend a religious ceremony.
But her spirits lifted and her shy smile returned with the excitement of dressing up in her new clothes before she set out hand-in-hand with her father, Ahmad Shah, for the 10-minute walk to the shrine.
It is a place that haunts her nightmares.
The image, taken by AFP photographer Massoud Hossaini, was splashed on front pages worldwide and won the Pulitzer prize this year.
“I go back to that place in my dreams. I see my brother and the man (the bomber). I always repeat that scene in my dreams,” Tarana said.
Security was tight, with many streets blocked off and heavily armed police on rooftops and along the approach roads, and even Tarana was frisked before being allowed into the ceremonies.
Once among the throng of worshippers, including young men whipping their bare backs into a bloody mess in a traditional mourning ritual, Tarana’s step faltered and she and her father stopped in a small sheltered spot.
A plastic chair was found and she sat quietly, tension showing in her face and her brown eyes growing increasingly sad with each passing minute.
After half an hour, she and her father, having shown their refusal to be cowed by suicide bombers, left to visit the graves of her brother and other relatives on a bare and bleak hillside overlooking the city.
When the Sunni Muslim Taliban ruled in the 1990s before being ousted by a US-led invasion in 2001, minority Shiites suffered brutal persecution, but sectarian violence has been rare in recent years.
Shiites, who make up roughly 20 percent of the Afghan population, were effectively banned from marking Ashura in public under the Taliban.
Ashura commemorates the killing of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), near Karbala by armies of the caliph Yazid in 680 AD.
Posted by admin in Focus 24/7 on November 25th, 2012
Just as it did in Afghanistan and Iraq, the CIA and U.S. military act on bad intel when designating targets for drone attacks.
As when the United States greased the skids for war with Iraq, it’s ratcheting up tensions with Iran by disseminating misinformation about nuclear weapons. The United States has also failed to learn from other mistakes in the Iraq, as well as Afghanistan.
Remember how the United States offered rewards to the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq for intelligence on insurgents? That only resulted in populating prisons such as Bagram and Guantánamo with legions of innocents. It seems that in their haste to unearth terrorists, the U.S. military and the CIA had failed to vet their informants. With an eye for the main chance, Iraqis and Afghans saw informing as a way both to cash in and rid their communities of neighbors who’d crossed them, for whatever reason. no matter how trivial.
Using an occupying army to assist you in ridding yourself of local enemies is a time-(dis)honored tradition. One would think that, by this point in history, the military and intelligence agencies would be alert to manipulation. Presumably a perceived need for live bodies to fill quotas over-rode their wariness. Now we see this mistake repeated in designating drone-strike targets.
The landmark report Living Under Drones, released in September by the Stanford International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic and the Global Justice Clinic at NYU School of Law, quotes author Tom Junod. In a piece for the AugustEsquire titled The Lethal Presidency of Barack Obama, he wrote (emphasis added):
The US detained the “worst of the worst” in Guantánamo for years before releasing six hundred of them, uncharged, which amounts to the admission of a terrible mistake. The Lethal Presidency is making decisions to kill based on intelligence from the same sources. These decisions are final, and no one will ever be let go.
By “decisions to kill,” Junod means drone strikes. Not only is the CIA using bogus intel for drone strikes as it and the military did to net terrorist suspects, it may also be paying Pakistanis to mark houses as targets by depositing computer chips nearby. In addition, GPS’s are attached to cars to turn them, too, into drone fodder.
The report also quotes Clive Stafford Smith writing for the Guardian.
Just as with Guantanamo Bay, the CIA is paying bounties to those who will identify “terrorists.” Five thousand dollars is an enormous sum for a Waziri informant, translating to perhaps £250,000 in London terms. The informant has a calculation to make: is it safer to place a GPS tag on the car of a truly dangerous terrorist, or to call down death on a Nobody (with the beginnings of a beard), reporting that he is a militant? Too many “militants” are just young men with stubble.
Smith reveals another dynamic. Imagine that a Pakistani who contacts the CIA isn’t motivated by the desire to avenge a neighbor for failing to pay back a loan, or something similar. If he’s only in it for the money, why risk fingering a Taliban commander? If discovered, he and perhaps his family would find themselves on the murderous end of Taliban revenge.
To give the CIA some wiggle room, perhaps it assumes it won’t be provided with bogus info because potential informants would fear the CIA demand return of the money if the lead turned out to be false or that it would even detain them. But, as the NYU-Stanford report indicates, the CIA or U.S. military rarely investigate the aftermath of drone strikes to determine whether civilians were killed.
Perhaps then the CIA assumes that informants would be loath to turn in innocents for fear of reprisal from the families of those killed. When deciding who to finger, though, informants may be targeting victims whose families lack the wherewithal to take revenge. Or, with what, in effect, is an astronomical sum to them, informants may factor in paying retribution money to the families of those killed.
The longer this type of cynical use of indigenous peoples continues, the further one’s respect for the CIA diminishes.
Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Newsflash on November 27th, 2010
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