Many letters, documents missing from law ministry files

[BATMAN]

Many letters, documents missing from law ministry files

ISLAMABAD: The law ministry is looking into legal options to get the Swiss cases revived besides initiating an inquiry into the disappearance of relevant official papers relating to the Swiss cases against President Asif Ali Zardari and others. It is believed that official papers were stolen to let the appeal appeal period against the Swiss’ response to Pakistan’s Nov 2012 letter lapse.

On Tuesday night, the law ministry in its press release had disclosed: “As relevant files relating directly to the subject are presently not traceable in the Law and Justice Division, our ambassador in Switzerland was requested to send us by fax copies of all correspondence available with him.”

Sources in the law ministry confided to The News that the law minister, the attorney general, secretary law and other top mandarins of the ministry in their deliberations have decided to look into the Swiss laws to explore the possibility of the cases.

The sources said it is suspected that some one during the last PPP regime had stolen the February 4 response of the Swiss authorities to the November 2012 letter of the Government of Pakistan which was written following the order of the apex court in the NRO implementation case.

It is believed that the official document was stolen from the government files possibly to ensure that Pakistan does not file any appeal against the February 4 decision of the Swiss government. The Swiss authorities had given ten-day period to the government of Pakistan to appeal against the February 4 response of the Swiss authorities i.e the closure of the Swiss cases.

“We would try to find out the person, who had removed the official papers from the government file,” one of the sources said, adding that now the law ministry is pondering the point to interpret the ten-day appeal period to have started on June 13 when following Pakistani mission’s request the Swiss authorities provided a copy of the Swiss response to November 2012 letter.

The decision of the Attorney General, Geneva dated Feb 4, 2013 stated that the Publi Ministry of Geneva has decided not to review the closure order dated 25th August 2008 on the grounds that the statutory limitation period of fifteen years has expired; no new evidence or facts have been revealed; and the Republic of Pakistan procedures constitute an “abuse of power” inasmuch as it is “demanding resumption of the criminal procedure while maintaining that such resumption could not take place.”

The same decision offered the government of Pakistan to file an appeal before the Criminal Appeal Court within ten days. But that was not done by the then government. The law ministry officials are of the view that writing a letter to the Swiss authorities was delayed for almost three years despite clear order of the Supreme Court only because the previous rulers wanted to use the 15-year period to get the cases time-barred as per Swiss laws.

The ministry sources said that such was the keenness of the previous regime to protect the president from facing the Swiss cases that even the November 12 letter written to the Swiss authorities on SC’s order was not available in the official files of the ministry.

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