Mutual legal assistance law soon: Akbar

ISLAMABAD: The government has inalised a broad-based mutual legal assistance law to obtain evidence from foreign jurisdictions about inancial crimes and mega corruption cases involving Pakistanis.

This was stated by Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar while addressing a news conference in Islamabad on Sunday.

He said that while India and China have achieved a lot in terms of bringing back assets abroad, Pakistan hasn’t been half as successful. No international asset tracing cases were lodged in the past 15 years, no Mous were signed, no agreements made and no work was done, he said.

He said the law will soon be placed before the cabinet and it will be brought irst through an ordinance and then presented before the parliament.

The law is more open and will empower the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the FIA to carry out the investigations as per the international treaties, he said.

Akbar said that a bilateral treaty is again being ratiied with the Swiss authorities which will enable the country to get the details of the bank accounts opened by Pakistani nationals.

The special assistant said that Pakistan has already signed a treaty with Britain which will help speed up the investigations into different high proile cases.

He said he is also visiting Britain next week where he will meet his counterpart of national crime agency and also hold discussions on the pending requests for extradition including that of former inance minister Ishaq Dar.