LONDON  -  The total value of the properties of ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his family is estimated at £32 million with London’s swankiest addresses, revealed Daily Mail.

According to the revelations, Avenfield House is where super-rich Nawaz Sharif has lived when in London, since 1993. He shares this property with his two sons Hassan and Hussain, his daughter Maryam and son-in-law Captain (r) Safdar.

Avenfield House lies in the heart of Mayfair, near the top of Park Lane, with a view of Hyde Park. For Avenfield is where Nawaz Sharif has lived when in London since 1993, knocking four luxury flats together to make a single mansion, now worth at least £7 million.

It is just the kind of property that Russian oligarchs possessed in recent years. “The family has made huge profits from other sites which have not figured in court – such as the swankiest address of all, at One Hyde Park Place, which Nawaz Sharif’s son Hassan sold for £43 million,” the report said. For the past few months, the Sharifs are facing a trial related to Avenfield flats and other references in an accountability court. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) prosecutor has alleged the ex-PM of making the property with dirty money.

The family is also accused of using dirty money to buy at least 21 UK properties on top of the Avenfield flats, most at equally grand Central London locations, in Mayfair, Chelsea and Belgravia. The total value of the properties is estimated at least £32 million. 

Untangling the web of the Sharifs’ British real estate portfolio is not easy. The properties are registered via a bewildering network of companies, trusts and bank accounts. According to the prosecutors in Pakistan, the Sharifs have for years moved their money in and out of Britain, Switzerland, the Middle East and the British Virgin Islands – to conceal its dishonest provenance.

It is not illegal to own property through an offshore company. 

However, under Pakistan’s national accountability laws – first enacted in 1997 when Nawaz Sharif was prime minister – it is down to the Sharifs to prove their assets were acquired legitimately. 

This, the prosecutors claim, they have failed to do. In court last week, Nawaz’s Sharif’s defence counsel claimed the prosecution had failed to establish his client was the beneficial owner of the flats or that he ran the offshore companies. He said his name did not appear on documents submitted by the prosecutors and that he did not need to call any evidence for the defence because the prosecution had not proved its case.

Nawaz’s son Hussain declined to respond to the MoS (Mail on Sunday).

IMRAN FLAYS EX-RULERS

NNI adds: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan on Sunday slammed ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif after British newspaper published a report regarding his assets in London.

Imran Khan shared a post of Daily Mail on Twitter with following caption, “More on how the Pakistani nation s wealth was looted through money laundering by corrupt rulers and their families.”

Monitoring Desk