A national embarrassment.

The important hard fact is that the actual custodian of the entire investigative outcome if any rests with Mr Robert Byrne who is a well-known detective in the UK; how come the entire investigation was sublet to a third party by Broadsheet as they did not have the capability to probe such financial corruption and this is a question for the then chairman and the government, if Broadsheet informed the NAB about it.

The government must approach Mr Robert Byrne, a highly professional detective to get more hard facts from him.

The country has now landed in an embarrassing situation, exposing our legal and ability to handle the issues going on in foreign courts. The then government hired Broadsheet to seek out alleged stolen money parked on foreign soil. Instead of hunting stolen money by some Pakistanis, Broadsheet, unfortunately, hunted Pakistan itself and now Pakistan has been forced to pay Broadsheet instead of getting the assets recovered.

This was the time when I was in exile, having arrived in London in 1999. Unfortunately, every government becomes a hunter of the previous government. An agreement was signed between the Broadsheet LLC and NAB in 2000 to help to recover the country's stolen assets stashed in different offshore companies. Broadsheet LLC, based in the Isle of Man, was hired by NAB to trace out hidden assets of Pakistanis in foreign countries. It was Jerry James who signed this agreement, not with his own original company as one of his partners had undergone conviction and therefore James formed this new company under Man of Isle's laws. NAB of the time, neither did the required due diligence nor bothered to add the exit clause in the agreement. It was a one-sided agreement full of flaws.

The company was established by Colorado businessman Jerry James and entered liquidation proceedings in the Isle of Man in 2005, before being dissolved. Although NAB had signed the agreement with Broadsheet from the Isle of Man, but terminated it through its solicitor Kendall Freeman in London on October 28, 2003, alleging Broadsheet had made a misrepresentation about its abilities. NAB of the time did not follow the right course to deal with this matter.

The few salient and relevant features and my comments on the agreement between NAB and Broadsheet are as under:

It is mentioned in the agreement that Broadsheet shall receive twenty percent of the amount available to be transferred plus a bonus if any, as may be allowed by Chairman NAB, and...