Broadsheet LLC did completely nothing to pay back ‘looted’ assets toPakistan, and twisted and distorted about its abilities to do so, accordingto the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) former chairman, retired GenSyed Amjad, who had approved the contract with Broadsheet LLC on account ofNAB.
The Broadsheet agreement was approved without necessary approvals beingtaken from the appropriate ministries, and a son of the NAB prosecutorgeneral at the time, Farouk Adam Khan, later quietly worked for aBroadsheet partner.
Numerous pages of correspondence between NAB and American asset recoveryfirm Trouvons (which following set up Broadsheet LLC in the Isle of Man),several court documents, and Gen Amjad’s statement before Sir AnthonyEvans, the arbitration judge at the London High Court (LHC), reveal theextent of the absurdities, disorganisation, and miscommunication involvedin the whole saga.
Gen Amjad claimed “did next to nothing concrete to assist NAB in receivingassets outside Pakistan through their investigations”, failed to provideNAB with any useful information, and “failed to repatriate any assets backto Pakistan”.
Under the conceived Agreement, NAB would have been liable for prosecutingtargets inside Pakistan and Broadsheet would be mandated to trace, find andrepatriate assets back to Pakistan and receive 20% commission onrepatriated assets at no additional cost to Pakistan.
According to Gen Amjad, Broadsheet failed to provide “the type of proofs offoreign assets” that Pakistan needed to successfully prosecute targetedindividuals.
Gen Amjad also told the arbitration judge that the people at Broadsheet“were certainly not providing the level of assistance that we had been ledto believe they would”.Deceptive portrayals
Court papers prove that in October 1999, Gen Amjad became informed of GSAInvestment Corporation and Trouvons through Tariq Fawad Malik and GhazanfarSadiq Ali, who served the company.
They told Gen Amjad that Trouvons could help NAB in the rapid recovery ofassets that had been “corruptly obtained and secreted outside of Pakistan”.
They convinced Gen Amjad that an asset recovery system with the firms wouldnot lose Pakistan any money and that all the firms would need was a powerof attorney to launch judicial proceedings against the “targets”.
Meanwhile, Pakistan would sit back and see billions of dollars brought backwithin months.
Gen Amjad consequently attended the Colorado, USA office of Trouvons wherehe met Jerry James and Dr William Pepper as the main people behind Trouvons.
Jerry James and Dr Pepper influenced General Amjad that they wereparticularly linked to the US, UK, and other jurisdictions and that theywould be recovering billions of ill-gotten assets for the interest of thepeople of Pakistan.
They affirmed that Trouvons would fund all of the investigations and otherefforts to recover assets.Inadequate commitment:
After visiting Colorado, Gen Amjad tasked Farouk Khan to undertakenegotiations on behalf of NAB and draft a “suitable agreement” stressingthat the agreement should be only about “assets outside of Pakistan” and“not relate to assets inside of Pakistan”.
Gen Amjad signed the agreement with Broadsheet LLC, set up by Trouvons, onJune 20, 2000, and with International Assets Recovery (IAR) on July 15,2000.
According to Gen Amjad, he realised much later that he might have perhapstrusted Khan too much.
Gen Amjad said he had asked Khan to ensure that the agreement was vetted bythe Ministry of Law and the Ministry of Finance, but Khan “failed to sendthe draft agreement to the relevant ministers” and “failed to obtain theirapproval”.
Instead, the Agreement left a major deception clear that eventually allowedBroadsheet to exploit the contract to claim 20% of all recoveries made byNAB even within Pakistan and even if it (Broadsheet) had no role infacilitating them.
It later was known that Khan’s son was employed by David Orchard, who,along with Dr Pepper, advised Trouvons.Effortless work
Gen Amjad said he gave an office to Broadsheet at the NAB offices at nocost to facilitate the recovery of wealth; gave full access to theinformation they needed; and provided all documents, including dossiers onPPP chief Asif Ali Zardari and Benazir Bhutto.
Amjad said that Pakistan also assisted Broadsheet through the FederalInvestigation Agency, the State Bank, NAB, and other organisations with thehope that Broadsheet and IAR would use this help as a springboard and traceassets in material and concrete aspects, but they realised soon that“Broadsheet seemed to have grossly misrepresented and exaggerated theircompetencies and resources with respect to their asset recovery programme”.
Broadsheet, he said in his witness statement, did not actively orconsistently try to fulfil any of its obligations under the BroadsheetAgreement.
Gen Amjad served as NAB Chairman from November 16, 1999, to September 25,2000, and retired from the services on December 27, 2002.
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