Suspension of FIA’s Zafar Qureshi,Why?

Qureshi had evidence of foreign accounts

Suspension of FIA’s Zafar Qureshi has not only prevented the possible progress in NICL case but has also halted the suspended officer from pursuing an enquiry against his juniors for creating hurdles in his NICL probe, documents reveal. Zafar Qureshi wanted to proceed against the former DG FIA Waseem Ahmed for not cooperating and providing information about the foreign currency accounts of Moonis Elahi, received by the FIA headquarter from Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) UK, which delayed the process to reach its logical conclusion. These official documents available with The News, which include the recorded statements of four FIA officials and internal official correspondence between various officials of FIA, in addition to background interviews with FIA officials concerned, strongly suggest that if this pending enquiry had been completed, Qureshi would have charged these FIA officials formally. In such a scenario even the direct involvement of a powerful person in the interior ministry could have been made part of the official enquiry which would have created an most embarrassing situation for him as the contents of the statement recorded by one of the four FIA officials indicates his ultimate involvement for preventing smooth flow of information to the investigation team by conveying instructions to this effect to former DG FIA Waseem Ahmed, who has now been accommodated by appointing him as Additional Chief Secretary Sindh. “This could have resulted in many top FIA officials struggling to save their own skins instead of focusing their efforts to provide escape routes to Moonis Elahi as in such a situation all of them would have been running from pillar to post to get out of the clutches of the formal enquiry Qureshi was bent upon initiating against them,” commented a senior FIA official who was once associated with many mega scams. In this context, Zafar Qureshi lead team had recorded the statements of four FIA officials. Of them the statement of one FIA official, who was later thrown out of FIA, had spoken about the role of almost the entire chain of command sitting in Islamabad including the role of the powerful person in the interior ministry. The remaining three officials remained cautious not to utter a single word which could have been harmful for their superiors and could also hurt them. But despite their best efforts, the contents of these three officials also substantiate one thing i.e. “the unnecessary delay did, in fact, occur with fingers pointing at former DG FIA Waseem Ahmed.” For this purpose, Qureshi had even gone to the extent of issuing notices to former DG FIA Waseem Ahmed under 160 Cr.P.C to appear in person before the investigation team to explain as to why he (Waseem) kept this vital information about the foreign currency accounts of Moonis Elahi in UK with him for 21 days and why he did not provide the same to his investigations team. DG Waseem did not turn up at all while Zafar Qureshi was shown the door. This aspect of withholding the SOCA report from the investigations team was brought to the notice for the first time by Mirza Sultan M Saleem, the former Director NCB/Interpol FIA headquarters, which maintained a close coordination with the mainstream international agencies like Interpol, Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) UK. In a written statement Mirza Sultan M Saleem stated that before his resignation DG FIA Waseem Ahmed had directed him (Mirza Saleem) “not to cooperate and provide information with regard to accounts of accused Moonis Elahi in UK.” After obtaining this statement from Mirza Sultan Saleem, Qureshi went ahead by recording the statements of three more officials including Director Capt (R) Usman Zakaria, Assistant Director Ahmed Ali Afani and Inspector Shaukat Nawaz whom Mirza Sultan had mentioned in his statement for either preventing the smooth flow of information or conveying the messages of the high ups suggesting to Mirza to seek prior approval from the high ups before sending any information to the investigation team or conveying that the bosses are not happy with this situation. Contrary to Mirza Saleem’s bold step, all these three officials, whose names had appeared in the recorded statement of Mirza Saleem one way or other, did not categorically hold any one of FIA officials nor the high ups responsible for creating hurdles in the provision of information. Instead their statements clearly seem to have avoided giving direct answers to specific questions posed by Zafar Qureshi’s team. The contents of the recorded statements of these officials also show they had adopted extra cautious approach, obviously in a bid not to invite the wrath of the high ups, and kept on skipping the questions and diverting the issue from the subject. However, their statements did show a somewhat veiled attempt raising doubts about the high ups, particularly former DG FIA Waseem Ahmed, without dropping a direct hint. Despite being cautious at the time of recording his statement Director FIA Usman Zakaria, who did not accept the onus of causing delay in the flow of information, pointed fingers towards the former DG FIA Waseem Ahmed by saying: “The said letter was not put up to me, as the fax is installed at DG’s office and probably the staff of DG kept it to themselves.” Capt Usman admitted that delay of 20/21 days had actually occurred by stating: “I received the letter on 25th February, however, when I enquired about the receipt record from PS to DG FIA, he informed me that the said letter of SOCA was received on 8th February”. In this way Capt Zakaria himself created doubts about the role of former DG FIA by stating that he received the letter on 25th February but SOCA’s letter was received by the DG FIA on 8th February with a delay of around 17 days. Similarly, Assistant Director Ahmed Ali Afani while absolving himself from creating any delay in passing the information to Lahore investigation team had also innocently mentioned the delay of over 21 days, contrary to what Capt Zakaria had stated to be around 17 days. He stated: “On 25th February, the PS to DG brought a faxed copy of SOCA’s letter to him. When enquired why the delay has been caused, Afani suggested to the investigation team to enquire the issue further as to when was the letter actually received by PS to DG FIA. While Afani was suggesting further enquiry to determine the responsibility of delay he, like Capt Zakaria, also made the role of DG office doubtful by stating: “If it was received on time at PS to DG office, the onus lies on them.” Likewise, Inspector Shaukat Nawaz had also told the investigation team: “DG Waseem Ahmed has shown tremendous amount of anger on Mirza Saleem for not consulting him before sending the letter to SOCA and he came to know of this development only when a private TV channel splashed the news in its bulletin. Sensing the gravity of the situation as Zafar Qureshi had started expanding his area of investigation former DG FIA Malik Iqbal stopped him from further pursuing the matter by expressing his displeasure to Zafar Qureshi and stating that “under the pretext of investigation, you have started inquiries about the conduct of FIA officers”. Despite the best efforts, The News could not manage to obtain the viewpoints of Capt Usman Zakaria and Ahmed Ali Afani. The cell phone of Capt Zakaria did not respond while this correspondent found cell phone of Ahmed Ali Afani switched off whenever a call was made on his number. However, a text message pertaining to this issue was also made to them on their cell number but in vain. Some days back, talking to The News, former DG FIA Waseem Ahmed had point blank refused to accept the onus of creating any hindrance in the smooth functioning of the investigations and had instead regretted that Zafar Qureshi did not take sufficient time to evaluate such statements of FIA officials before summoning him to appear before the investigation team which consists of rank of assistant directors and inspectors. While talking to The News, Inspector Shaukat Nawaz had earlier denied having any knowledge about this development, however, when pressed he came out with a simple answer: “Former DG FIA was justified in showing his anger since Mirza Saleem did not consult him before sending the letter to SOCA. After all Waseem was the DG.”