Former interior minister Major general Naseerullah Babar (Retd) has dismissed Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz's denial of involvement in money laundering as a futile bid to white wash his image during visits abroad.
During the visit to New York Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz denied allegations by the former interior minister of his involvement in money laundering cases, and said that all his assets had been rightfully and legally earned. Shaukat Aziz also made generalised allegations that leaders in the past constructed plazas and factories for themselves.
"My attention had just been drawn to a statement by Shaukat Aziz in New York, in which he denied involvement in money laundering," Babar said in a statement from London on Thursday, adding, "I wish to reiterate that Aziz was investigated for money laundering by the PPP government".
He said that the FIA under his term of office actually opened the case of money laundering but the matter was subsequently not pursued due perhaps to political influence. If the FIA record is investigated the truth would come out, he added.
"The question Shaukat Aziz should address and answer is; was he not investigated for money laundering and did he not use political influence to escape charges?" he asked.
The former interior minister asked Shaukat Aziz to stop making generalised allegations against the past leaders and answer the question whether his government was not found by the Supreme Court of Pakistan as guilty of wrong doing in the Steel Mills privatisation.
About the prime minister's foreign visits General Babar said that the prime minister was wasting national resources by going on foreign junkets in a desperate bid to shore up his non representative regime where he is a mere puppet of the military establishment which rigged the elections to bring him into power in which several young men lost their lives.