BBC Urdu‘ s report hit prime time news yesterday with the revelation that the London Park Lane flats were purchased by the Sharif family in the 1990’s.
According to official documents from the UK Land registry, Nielson and Nescol offshore companies purchased the flats in the 1990s and there has been no transfer of ownership ever since.
The documents show that they have a total of five flats in Avenfield house, which is based in London’s prime central London area. currently each flat is worth millions. The documents show that the first flat, 17 Avenfield House was bought by Nescol Ltd on June 1, 1993. The second and third flats, flat 16 and flat 16a were bought by Nelson Enterprises Ltd in the same building on July 31, 1995. The fourth flat, 17-A, was bought by Nescol on July 23, 1996.
Anyone can go into the British Land registry site and pay a nominal 3 pounds and obtain the details on the flats including their ownership titles, the dates when they were bought and amount paid for them. The website also allows people to find out at what rate the properties in the area are currently selling for.
The Sharif family is facing a slew of corruption allegations in wake of the Panama papers that showed them as having millions stashed overseas in Offshore companies. The Supreme Court is currently hearing cases against the Prime minister, but it is not clear that they will be indicted despite increasingly clear evidence against them.
Read more: Pakistani Supreme Court refuses to act as the Executioner of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
The PML-N government is also introducing the 24th Amendment so that the prime minister if disqualified by the Supreme Court on the issue has recourse to appeal against it.
Read more: Why Nawaz Government rushing to dilute Supreme Court’s Suo Moto?
BBC Urdu documents also exposed that the fifth flat “12-A” Avenfield House, was bought by Hassan Sharif in 2004 through his company Flagship Investment Ltd.
The UK Company registration documents also show that when PM Nawaz Sharif’s son, Hassan Nawaz, established his company Flagship Investment Ltd in 2001, the address given at the time was that of his Park Lane apartment.
The UK’s Company House documents also show that Hassan is the director of four more companies, which have the address of the same Avenfield House flat.
BBC Urdu has stated that it wrote over two weeks ago, to both sons of the Prime Minister, Hassan and Hussain, to get their response on the ownership and dates of purchase of all these properties but has received no response from either.
In particular, Hussain Nawaz Sharif was asked to explain the contradiction between his statement that the flats were bought in 2006 and the UK land registry department which shows that the ownership of these properties has not changed since 1990s.