ISLAMABAD:Prime Minister Imran Khan accused ‘Pakistani mafia’ of using tactics such as bribe and blackmail to pressurize the state institutions and judiciary in order to protect their laundered money.
In a tweet on Saturday, the premier said ‘Pakistani mafia’ uses several tactics to build pressure on state institutions in order to protect illegal money. “The Pakistani mafia uses tactics of bribe, threat, blackmail and begging to pressurise state institutions and judiciary in order to protect their billions of money laundering stashed abroad,” he wrote.
However, the PM’s tweet against the ‘Pakistani mafia’ did not sit well with Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) Vice-President Maryam Nawaz, who lashed out in response to the tweet. In reply to the PM’s tweet, the PML-N leader, who was convicted in Avenfield case for owning assets beyond known source of income, replied back to the premier and accused him of being a part of the mafias that pressurize judges into targeting and punishing his political opponents.
“It is you who used the institutions to settle scores with your opponents and defaced and maligned them in the process. Shame on you,” she further accused the prime minister.
The PM’s statement against the money launderers and the ‘mafias’ who try to bribe and blackmail state institution comes days after Maryam accused an accountability court Judge Arshad Malik of being ‘blackmailed’ into convicting deposed PM Nawaz Sharif in the Al-Azizia verdict.
She claimed this while addressing a press conference last week, while she played a video as ‘evidence’ in which Judge Malik was allegedly confessing about announcing unjust verdict against Nawaz. Maryam claimed that the judge, who was in a conversation with Nasir Butt – a loyal fan of her father – had allegedly told him that he was pressured into convicting Nawaz(RP)
