Musharraf’s London house raises eyebrows

The purchaser was recently quoted as saying that one of his friends provided the money to procure the house. But he did not elaborate whether the generous friend was a Pakistani, a Pakistani- American or a foreigner.

Musharraf’s former spokesman Maj Gen Rasheed Qureshi said he had no idea about the source of money through which his ex-boss bought the house.

However, an informed politician, who has a business interest in London and knows the value of properties located in different up-market areas, said Musharraf’s house certainly cost more than £500,000.

“I am confident that Musharraf would not deny receiving money from a friendly country during his last days in power.

The funds Musharraf has at hand have not come from any Pakistani or foreign intelligence agency or institution,” one of his former political allies alleged on condition of anonymity.

But another source charged that the money could be the proceeds of any of the major deals carried out during the Musharraf era. He said what he knew for sure was that Musharraf had no dearth of money.

“Most of our colleagues in the political arena generally go for small commissions and kickbacks but people, who have enjoyed the status like that of Musharraf, would be loathe to such petty cash and would go for one big kill,” a senior politician said.

A Musharraf sympathiser, who did not want to be identified, surmised that the former president had got ample funds from his foreign lectures, as he was the highest paid speaker in foreign lands.

“Maybe, a part of the funds was also provided by his son Bilal to buy the London house,” he conjectured. He said Musharraf had so far delivered over a dozen lectures at prestigious foreign institutions and got a fee much higher than any one else including even former American presidents.

According to him, Musharraf’s wife left Islamabad for London last week after spending a few days with his mother at their Chak Shahzad Islamabad farm house where they had shifted from the Army House.

PML-N spokesman Senator Pervez Rashid alleged that Musharraf purchased the London house from the unaccounted for money he pocketed, in the anti-terror war for which there was nothing in the record of the Pakistan government.

“The cost of the London house, which should be around Rs600m for being located in the most expensive area of the British capital, was just petty cash compared to the hard cash that Musharraf had at hand.

His known income, limited to his salary was not even enough to pay Rs5.9m for dozens of multitudes of items valuing Rs44m that he took away from the cabinet treasury. He can’t even justify this payment.”