Why Qatari Prince Hamad Bin Jasim came to Pakistan
Shares
LAHORE - After spending around two hours at the Sharifs’ farmhouse in Lahore, Qatari Prince Hamad Bin Jassim was driven to the Model Town residence of the CM where he held around a half an hour meeting with Shehbaz Sharif. Later, Nawaz Sharif also joined the meeting.
Nawaz Sharif himself drove the car of the prince which showed how intimate friends they are. Later, the Qatari delegation flew to Karachi where Prince Hamad bin Jassim and his team attended the official ceremony in connection with the 1120MW Port Qasim coal-fired power plant developed with the help of China and Qatar.
No official statement of the Jati Umra meeting was released to the media while a bit information the media reported came through sources. According to these sources, matters of mutual interest and business deals were discussed at the meeting of Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim with Nawaz. While at the Model Town meeting, bilateral ties and LNG projects in Punjab came under discussion.
The media also reported that Sheikh Jassim’s visit to the city was not officially scheduled. He was supposed to appear before law in Pakistan in the cases against the Sharifs , but he failed to do so when the Supreme Court-designated joint investigation team (JIT) in the Panama repeatedly served notice on him for appearance.
The JIT members for the convenience of Prince Jassim had even travelled to Qatar to record his statement at the Pakistani embassy in Doha as a matter of jurisdiction of Pakistan law, but he refused to come to the Pakistan embassy there.
Earlier, during the course of hearing of the Panama leaks petitions, two letters on behalf of Prince Jassim were presented to the Supreme Court to support the money trail of the Sharifs regarding purchase of apartments in London. Hamad bin Jassim, through the letters, claimed the London properties of Sharif family were purchased from the proceeds of their real estate businesses in which Nawaz Sharif’s father, Mian Muhammad Sharif, had invested 12 million dirhams in 1980.
The court wanted to hear the prince on the veracity of the letters, but he did not show up, so they were dumped as bogus for not meeting legal requirements.
The Supreme Court, in its final decision, disqualified Nawaz Sharif as a member of the parliament, which also deprived him of premier office on July 28.