Cowasjee Articles

'Not Guilty'

6th January 1995

IN the eyes of the people they may stand guilty, but they have not yet been proven so in the eyes of the law. It is apparently no longer necessary that justice must not only be done but must also be seen to be done. So, right now, these people all stand 'not guilty'.

President Farooq Leghari: Immediately prior to becoming President, this good clean PPP man Struck a land deal of sorts with Yunus Habib (YH), claiming total ignorance of YH's background.

Leghari says YH, and other Memons of Karachi, showed interest in the purchase of a few acres of his vast landholdings in the Dera Ghazi Khan area. The entire Memon community maintain that they are not farmers and would never dream of buying farmland especially in remote DGK.

Leghari flew off at state expense with family and friends in tow, to see his son graduate. He constantly dips his fingers into the treasury to indulge in his favourite sport, shooting birds. He thus uses the people's money for personal pleasure and gain. which is unlawful.

The President must be an impartial man. This cannot be said about Farooq. Leghari. He stoutly maintains he is guilty of neither misdemeanour nor offence. Were he to believe otherwise, being the clean man he is reputed to be, he would have resigned.

Asif Zardari (AZ): Our de facto prime minister was involved in many cases and was in prison for many months accused of criminal offences and terrorism. He was bailed out and whilst on bail sworn in as a federal minister by his accuser, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan.

Subsequently, for want of evidence in some cases he was acquitted, and other cases were dismissed or quashed by the High Courts and the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

During the first Benazir PPP regime AZ was wrongly accused of being Mr Ten Per cent. During her second round, he has been accused of taking money but has so far not been taken to court. Allegations abound, but as far as the law is concerned, he is, up till now, 'not guilty'.

Benazir Bhutto (BB): Our de jure prime minister against whom, during the last regime, some twenty references were filed by the government. She was accused of misconduct, misdemeanour, corruption, and so forth. No cases were proven against her, and she thus stands 'not guilty'- .

She and her entire family and many of her friends live off the state. Her favourite pastime is to fly off abroad with a planeload of sycophants. So far she has managed, at state expense, over a score of visits to various countries.

The Central Executive Committee of her party, which she chairs, has decided that Nawaz Sharif will not be arrested for the crimes and offences he has committed, but that other politicians, irrespective of their status and standing, will be arrested and jailed. This proves, if nothing else does, that she is carrying on a political vendetta. She, however, maintains she is only doing what she is constitutionally empowered to do. she thus stands 'not guilty'.

Mirza Aslam Beg (MAB): Once Chief of Army Staff, a great FRIEND, philosopher, guide and propagator of YH. This innocent man claimed:

"At no stage did I ever suspect that the amount so donated was out of the funds allegedly embezzled by Mr Yunus Habib while serving in the Habib Bank."

"The amount" was Rs 140 million deposited in the account of the ISI during September and October 1990. In line with 'prevailing practice', the ISI spent approximately Rs 60 million for election purposes and the remaining Rs 80 million was placed in its special funds.

According to MAB, the DG ISI can provide details of expenditure made, details known to the then President, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, and later to Nawaz Sharif when he became prime minister. MAB does not admit to have done anything wrong by being a party to the rigging of elections or to the misappropriation of public funds. He remains a FRIEND and 'not guilty'.

Yunus Habib (YH): What is his crime? He grew up in a Gujerati speaking Memon household where the traditional adage, Mottah no hamesh maan aapwoo (always respect and follow the example of your elders and betters) was firmly dinned into him. A junior staffer in the nationalised Habib Bank, he acted as a personal flunky to the then head Kassim Parek—making appointments, receiving and taking care of visitors, and so forth. He came across the good, the bad and the indifferent, the high and the low, the powerful and the insignificant, the straight and the crooked. He read characters well, he assessed their weaknesses.

With the coming of the first Benazir government in 1988, he was exposed to zamindars and cattle-rustlers, a new breed of businessmen with their own patent business ethics. To reach the top, he had to slot in.

AZ got his friend, Safdar Zaidi, appointed president of Habib Bank, making YH zonal chief. Zaidi and YH obliged. With the 1990 change of regimes and of elders and betters, YH and Zaidi's fortunes changed.

They went in and out, upwards, downwards, forwards, backwards, left and right. They were arrested, bailed out, tried, acquitted, cases against them were quashed.

They realised they could do no wrong. With guile and help YH managed to resurface, enrich himself, and float his own Mehran Bank.

Faithful to his friends and accomplices, he provided jobs for the boys.His modus operandi was simple. In return for kickbacks, his friends in high offices arranged for public funds to be deposited in his bank. YH prudently benefited himself. The remainder he rolled over, confident that he could roll in on for ever. He know that he was merely the tool, the screwdriver, and that if ever caught he would have sufficient material on the tool-wielders to be able to save himself. He employed Hameed Asghar Kidwai (HAK) to head his Peshawar operation. With the coming of the second Benazir regime, YH instructed HAK to provide the funds to bring in Sherpao's provincial government. HAK kept tabs and tapes on his own movements and conversations.

On March 24, 1994, the State Bank blew the whistle. YH was once more arrested and jailed. YH, the laid-back gambler, is calmly relaxing in jail waiting for his handlers to get him out. His mathematics assure him that they have got more out of him than he out of them.

The government has side-stepped. On the grounds that YH illegally paid and bribed political leaders, an inquiry commission has been appointed under the chairmanship of the honourable retired Supreme Court Judge, Abdul Qadeer Chaudhry. The Commission can only judge on the evidence produced before it by the types of Rahman Malik of the Federal Investigation Agency.

The list of YH's beneficiaries who want him released and out of the way is lengthy. It includes Leghari, AZ, BB, MAB, Sherpao, Saifullah, Rahman Malik, Nawaz Sharif and his accomplices, and all those who aided and abetted in filling with public money the coffers of Mehran Bank for them to be emptied for private gain. With the release of HAK's tapes and statements, a deal may have been struck.

YH should soon be released, and may well go laughing all the way to his new post at the head of some financial institution. YH must only hope that 'they' do not get to him, before or after, to silence him permanently.

When one day last year I met YH in the corridors of the Sindh High Court, he asked me what fault I thought he had committed and quoted the Gujerati proverb jevi sohbat tevi asar,' or 'Lie down with dogs and you catch fleas'.

When I congratulated him on his finesse and achievements, he answered, 'Array Seth, ee baddha gadhen ni pate naache'. There had been nothing to it. He had dealt with jackasses.

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