Qamar Zaman Kaira, a senior leader of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and former information minister, on Tuesday said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family will not be able to face anyone if video recordings of the joint investigation team (JIT) are made public. He expressed these views while talking to media persons in front of the Supreme Court. "The Prime Minister's lawyers could not satisfy the Supreme Court during the hearing in the Panama Papers case and were found beating around the bush," Kaira said.
He said that judges repeatedly asked the Sharif family's counsel to provide any evidence in their defence. He said the Prime Minister's legal team could not reply the questions asked by the three-member bench during the hearing. He went on to say that the judges asked the legal team about distribution of the Prime Minister's assets and the London flats, but it could not reply in this regard. Even the judges asked the legal team to rebut the assets but the lawyers had no reply to this question.
He said the lawyers could not offer a reply regarding "the UAE Iqama (a residence and work permit) of the Prime Minister," He said the lawyers also did not answer a question regarding the "bank accounts" of the Prime Minister in Saudi Arabia. The PPP leaders said that main focus of the Prime Minister's lawyers was to avoid reopening of Hudaibiya Paper Mills case "but the judges said that they cannot stop reopening of Hudaibiya Paper Mills case if Panama Papers case has a link to it."
Another PPP leader, Nadeem Afzal Chan, announced his party's support to "those institutions which protect the law and constitution of the country." Answering a question, he said he is not quitting the PPP, adding that he does not do politics on the basis of relationships. Earlier, Chan and Minister of State for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali met each other in the SC premises warmly.