ISLAMABAD, Aug 26 (APP): Advisor to the Prime Minister on Accountability and Interior Mirza Shahzad Akbar said that the opposition’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) were opposing the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) related laws after failure in getting National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).
Responding to a tweet posted by PPP senator Ms Sherry Rehman, he said Sherry Rehman was trying to mislead the people saying there is no change in the FATF related laws in power to arrest making an offense cognizable was not draconian, hundreds of offenses were cognizable under law.
PPP and PML-N opposed the FATF related bills simply for not getting an NRO, (a reference of granting amnesty to politicians and other individuals by former President Pervez Musharraf in 2007, by quashing various corruption and criminal cases against them so they could return to the country and engage in the democratic process).
He said each and every requirement of FATF was in written form and both opposition parties quite well versed with this reality.So let’s stop lie and misleading people. They have been misled for long enough. Nation also knows opposition’s track record of people friendly laws made under their regimes like POCA (Prevention of Corruption Act).
Sherry Rehman had said that the bills were opposed in the Senate because powers to arrest without warrants were being given to police and investigators.
This was neither required by FATF nor was it defensible in any form of even the most illiberal democracy.