Shahzad Akbar offers to join NAB probes via video link from London

LONDON: PTI leader and former special assistant to the prime minister Mirza Shahzad Akbar said the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is deliberately barring him from appearing in "several investigations of a serious nature" in which he has been implicated.

The former accountability czar addressed the media on Thursday outside the Pakistan High Commission in Knightsbridge against the same organisation he headed and ran with an iron fist from 2018 until his resignation in 2021.

Akbar visited the high commission to seek permission to appear before the inquiries, in response to call-up notices, via video link.

He said he came in person to appeal for video link appearances after offering the same to NAB in numerous communications and failing to get a positive response.

"I have put this before the Islamabad High Court. NAB knows I reside full-time in the United Kingdom after leaving Pakistan when it became clear there were threats to my life," he said.

"There is a clear, known and established political motivation behind these cases against me, yet I am offering to join the investigation via video link from the United Kingdom. I have offered to do so from the Pakistan High Commission in London as well but there has been no response. Instead, I was answered with more media trials. There is a clear threat to my life and liberty,” he added.

The former accountability czar alleged that NAB officials were continuing to harass people in Pakistan. "They visit my old residence, and intimidate my relatives for ulterior motives, on behalf of those who run NAB."

"I was summoned again in person on February 6, 2025, in Islamabad as another attempt to harass me. I have come here to stress again that I am available for a video link interview and happy to provide any legally sought documents," he added.

Furthermore, he said, he has penned a letter to NAB Chairman Lt Gen (retd) Nazir Ahmed Butt, NAB Prosecutor General Syed Ihtesham Qadir Shah, and Director General Mirza Irfan Baig.

Akbar said there is a precedent available where several people appeared via video links to give evidence in Pakistan. “In the Memogate scandal, Hussain Haqqani and Mansoor Ijaz appeared from London via video link to present their view. I want the same facility,” he further added.

When asked by Geo News about the then-PTI government denying requests of Mian Saleem Raza and Nasir Butt to appear before NAB in the Judge Arshad Malik video case via video link, Akbar said decisions were made "elsewhere at that time".

"I have sympathy for Mian Saleem Raza and Nasir Mahmood. The difference is they didn’t name who was behind the cases against them; I and many others in PTI have named the people behind these cases. Those filing cases against them at the time are doing the same against us now. There is a lesson in it for the politicians to come together and work towards the supremacy of Pakistan’s constitution," he added.

Akbar was an adviser to Imran Khan until three months before the prime minister was ousted in April 2022.