Chairman NAB Nawid Ahsan presides over a meeting with officals during his visit at the National Accountability Bureau Sindh in Karachi.

ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau is sending its team to the United Kingdom to bring back 12 boxes containing records of President Asif Ali Zardari’s Swiss cases, sources told The Statesmen.

The NAB team headed by its Chief of Staff, Islamabad, Muhammad Ashfaq will soon leave for London to take into custody the record lying at the Pakistan High Commission.

“Passports of NAB officials have been sent to the British High Commission in Islamabad for visa,” said a NAB official.

Acting on the directives of the Supreme Court, NAB Chairman Nawid Ahsan had written a letter to Pakistan’s High Commissioner Wajid Shamsul Hassan, asking him to send the record as early as possible. But Mr Hassan suggested that the NAB officials should come to London to take custody of the boxes. He had asked Mr Ahsan to send NAB Prosecutor General Dr Danishwar Malik. But because of bad health Mr Malik could not fly to London.

After receiving the record, the bureau might present it before the Supreme Court if required, the sources said, adding that it could also be made public.

Talking to our correspondent, High Commissioner Hassan had said: “At present 12 boxes are in the safe custody of the government of Pakistan in London waiting for further instructions.”

Mr Hassan and NAB officials had obtained the record from a Swiss legal firm in Geneva contesting the cases on behalf of the government of Pakistan. “The record is the property of Pakistan and it should have been in the custody of the government,” he had said.

It is learnt that foreign lawyers, including those playing the role of go-between, have been paid more than Rs666 million by the NAB through the Pakistan High Commission as fee and other expenses from 1999 to 2008.

Under the instructions of the Supreme Court, NAB wanted to contact the Swiss government for the reopening of President Zardari’s cases but there are reports that the law ministry stopped it from directly approaching the Swiss government.

A source quoted a letter of the law ministry as saying: “The reopening of Swiss cases is one of such matters that requires state-to-state dealing.”

Meanwhile, a senior official of the presidency, who did not want to be named, said President Zardari enjoyed immunity under Article 248 of the Constitution and now the fresh order of the Supreme Court regarding reopening of the Swiss cases was being assessed by the law division.