ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistani finance minister Ishaq Dar has said he does not expect justice from the Supreme Court of Pakistan in a case alleging he amassed wealth beyond his known sources of income, as the country’s government has stepped up efforts to seek his extradition from the United Kingdom where he has lived since October 2017.
In September 2017, a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) court indicted Dar for having wealth beyond his known sources of income. Dar has denied the charges, saying the case is a political vendetta engineered by opposition leaders and some members of a Supreme Court-appointed joint investigation team (JIT) that probed the matter.
A month after his indictment, the former finance minister left for Tajikistan to participate in an official conference but instead of returning to Pakistan, he flew to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he reportedly fell ill, traveling onwards to London for treatment where he has lived since.
In an exclusive interview with Arab News this week, Dar said he would not return to Pakistan until treatment for cervical problems had concluded and he was sure the courts would rule justly in his case.
“What justice I should expect from these courts,” he said when asked if he had faith in the Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa-led Supreme Court.
The former finance minister said the ‘assets beyond means’ case against him was based on a “mala fide” report by the joint investigation team that had said Dar had not filed tax returns for 20 years between 1981 and 2001. He said his returns, filed over 35 years with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Pakistan’s chief tax collection body, were available to the Supreme Court and could be verified, which the apex court had not done.
In an anti-corruption court hearing last month, the head of the JIT admitted that the team had not verified the taxable income of the former finance minister and only examined documents that it had received from investigation agencies.
However, despite these admissions, the finance minister said, the courts were still pursuing the case.
In Pakistan, the Supreme Court has routinely used “suo motu” provisions in the law to open cases on its own initiative, putting its stamp on wide swathes of public life and denouncing the failure of public institutions.
Why, Dar asked, had the apex court not intervened in his case?
“It was their primary responsibility, being the apex court, to have called the FBR and confronted them … wasn’t this the least required duty of the judges?” Dar said, adding that the court should ask FBR for verified documents of his filed tax returns and subsequently “have the courage to reverse this case and withdraw this reference.”
“In the judicial system the subversion of justice is a very serious crime,” he said.
The former finance minister also questioned the Supreme Court’s decision to include two members of the country’s military intelligence agencies as part of the six-person JIT team.
Although the military has carefully distanced itself from the proceedings, the team’s composition had fueled rumors that Pakistan’s powerful generals had a hidden hand in the probe.
Dar was credited with steering Pakistan’s economy to a sounder footing following a 2013 balance of payments crisis but critics say his reluctance to let the rupee weaken to ease current account pressures was symptomatic of a government making economic decisions with one eye on the next general election, which was held mid-2018.
Dar denies this and criticizes the current government of Prime Minister Imran Khan which came to power in August 2018 and under whose watch the rupee has lost a third of its value as part of a steady decline following a bailout agreement with the International Monetary Fund that comes with strict conditions, including a “market determined” exchange rate.
“You have to be sensible to deal with your own matters and not depend on foreign advice which is flawed sometimes,” Dar said. “I have often told international organizations that you have ruined many countries’ economies.”
In January this year, a Supreme Court bench started hearing a petition to bring Dar back to Pakistan and last week, Pakistani media reported that the United Kingdom and Pakistan had signed a memorandum of understanding on May 24 for Dar’s extradition.
“MoU is not an agreement; there is a huge gap between an MoU and reaching a final understanding,” Dar said when asked if he thought his extradition was a real possibility.
“The judicial process cannot be influenced by the executive here, in this country [the UK] ... like our country [Pakistan],” Dar said. “This [UK] is not a banana republic, the judicial system is very strong, due process is very strong, so that’s why they won’t be able to Inshallah [God willing] achieve their wish [of extradition] any time.”
He said even if the UK government did agree to the Pakistani request to initiate the extradition process, the Pakistan government would first have to prove that the case against Dar was not politically motivated.
“The UK government, I hope and expect, that they would not trigger the judicial process and they will understand that this is a political motivated case, this is political victimization, persecution of a person who was four times finance minister of Pakistan,” Dar said. “The government of Pakistan will have to establish their bona fide case [if they pursue extradition] … Everything is accounted for, I have all the evidence. So they will have a very embarrassing situation.”
Responding to conflicting reports that he had applied for political asylum in the UK, Dar said he had entered the UK on a visa that was valid until 2020, but the Pakistani government had canceled his passport last September. He had informed the UK authorities about this development, he said, but had not “heard from them since long.”
“I have informed the Home Office that my passport has been canceled, I’m virtually stateless and a refugee,” Dar said. “I have left it to my attorneys to deal with [this situation] in any appropriate manner that makes me stay in the UK legally … whatever is the legal way to stay here till I see justice in Pakistan and I get my medical treatment completed.”