LAHORE - Properties owned by the Sharif family in London’s upscale Park Lane neighbourhood were purchased in the 1990s and there has been no change of ownership since then, a BBC Urdu report claimed on Friday, citing official documents availed by the British news organisation.
The report, which comes as the Panamagate case is being heard in the Supreme Court, revealed that the four flats were purchased in the name of the Nielsen and Nescoll companies, while the premier’s son Hussain Nawaz has already admitted that the family owns these companies.
According to the documents of a property buying and selling organisation in London, the first flat in central London’s Mayfair residence was bought at 17 Avenfield House by Nescol Ltd in June 1, 1993.
The second, flat 16 was bought by Nelson Enterprises Ltd in the same building on July 31, 1995. The third flat, 16-A, was bought on the same date by the same company while the fourth, 17-A, was bought by Nescol on July 23, 1996.
Documents have also revealed that another flat “12-A” located in the same block of the Mayfair apartments is owned by a British company Flagship Investment Ltd. According to this company’s documents, its director is none other than Hassan Nawaz.
The said 12-A flat was bought by Flagship Investment Ltd at Avenfield House on January 29, 2004. According to a company that keeps record of corporate organisations, Hassan had started the said company in 2001, which has his address same as of the Park Lane flat.
Hassan is the director of four more companies, which have the address of the same Avenfield House flat.
The Supreme Court is hearing a slew of petitions filed by the opposition parties in the wake of the Panama Papers leaks, with the Sharif family facing allegations of corruption. Among the explanations that Sharif family has provided is a letter of a Qatari prince, but the credibility of this letter has been questioned.
BBC Urdu contacted premier’s sons Hassan and Hussain in writing to seek their response regarding the ownership and dates of purchase of these properties but received no response from them despite the passage of two weeks.
In the letter, Hussain was asked that the ownership of these properties has not changed since 1990s according to the record of the British land registry department, contrary to his claim that these flats were bought in 2006.
The questions raised by BBC also included a query relating to Nelson and Nescol, most importantly about the date of the buying of these offshore companies.
Interestingly, these are the same flats where Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif during his exile had finalised the oft quoted Charter of Democracy with the former chairperson Pakistan People’s Party chief Benazir Bhutto.