Bentley probe comes to dead end due to diplomatic immunity

KARACHI: Mystery shrouds the investigations into a scam involving import of Bentley Mulsanne, said to have been stolen in the United Kingdom and registered here in the name of a European diplomat, as diplomatic immunity has complicated the investigators’ as well as prosecution’s job, it has emerged.

In early September, Customs authorities recovered the 2014 Bentley Mulsanne V8 (valued Rs41,439,322) from a house in Defence Housing Authority. The local buyer of the high-end vehicle, Jameel Shafi, along with Naveed Bilwani, who allegedly illegally facilitated the clearance of the four-wheeler were taken into custody.

The case is pending before a special customs court, which has fixed January 11, 2023 for submission of the final charge sheet.

Documents seen by Dawn had suggested that the high-end vehicle was imported by a European diplomat stationed in Islamabad in 2019. The vehicle carried the number plate BRS-279 and a quick search of the registration number on the Sindh excise department’s online vehicle verification portal reveals that it was registered on May 21, 2020 in the name of “H. E. Aleksandar Borisov Parashkevov”.

Official documents further suggested that customs authorities had attempted, in the past, to seize the high-end vehicle in Karachi. However, the Bulgarian embassy had intervened and communicated to the foreign ministry that the vehicle was being used by a ‘service staff’ of the foreign mission and had not been sold to anyone, so the “customs department had no jurisdiction at all to seize, confiscate, or impound the vehicle”.

The story supposedly began in 2019 with the import of the vehicle by the ambassador of Bulgaria in Pakistan.

On Nov 2019, the government of Pakistan issued an exemption certificate in favour of Mr Parashkevov of the Embassy of Bulgaria for importing dutiable goods from abroad by diplomatic officers and missions for their personal use.

An official letter written by the Embassy of Bulgaria to the Sindh excise and taxation department on Dec 26, 2019 stated that the consignment (Bentley Mulsanne) was the property of the then-ambassador Aleksandar Borisov Parashkevov. The embassy asked the Sindh government to “issue cover registration number plate of the vehicle due to security reasons”.

On Jan 8, 2020, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had issued a “non-transferable” registration certificate for a diplomatic vehicle in the name of Ambassador Parashkevov with registration number CD-09-13.

The event took a turn when the customs authorities apparently gave a clean chit to the foreign mission in an interim charge sheet submitted in court and charge-sheeted six Pakistanis including Jameel Shafi, Naveed Bilwani and ‘unnamed’ officials of the excise and taxation department over their involvement in clearance of vehicles under diplomatic exemptions for different embassies.

Investigating Officer Mudassar Ali stated in the interim charge sheet that “during the scrutiny of the papers/documents submitted by the clearing agent, five letters purportedly issued by the Embassy of Bulgaria addressed to the ETO, Deputy Collector of Customs, M/s Hapag Lloyd all issued on 25/11/2019 ‘without bearing any signature’ had surfaced which were used during the clearance of the vehicle from different departments”.

Then, the charge sheet stated that it was also a well-established fact that none of the payments were made by the Embassy of Bulgaria either for hiring services of M/s World Ocean Center and M/s Focus Shipping Agencies or payment of delivery order charges.

“All these payments were done privately in cash and no evidence regarding payment from the Embassy could be retrieved so far which could substantiate that the vehicle belongs to the Embassy of Bulgaria,” it said.

Customs sources, on the condition of anonymity, told Dawn, that “since the matter involves a foreign embassy, therefore, the same will be looked into by the ministry of foreign affairs”.

“Even in case a foreign diplomat is found to be involved in the scam. There is no chance of his/her being charged and prosecuted in presence of the diplomatic impunity granted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the Diplomatic and Consular Privileges Act, 1972,” opined a senior official.

However, the customs department’s special public prosecutor, Ashiq Awan, when contacted, said that the issue of charge-sheeting any foreigner in the case would be decided in the final charge sheet.

While the final charge sheet is yet to be filed, the interim charge sheet stated that the Whatsapp communication between suspects Navaid and Fahad Ahmed Khan (employee of M/s Focus Shipping Agencies, who is a prosecution witness in this case) had showed that it was not just a case of one single vehicle smuggled by abusing diplomatic rights rather “there is a plethora of vehicles smuggled”.

It said that the investigating agency was approaching various quarters in order to get verified the antecedents of the shipments, adding that the scrutiny and verification for the said data is also under way.

However, customs sources believed that a further progress in the case of other vehicles allegedly smuggled in the name of different embassies might open up a new Pandora ’s Box.

They said that it was very difficult to prosecute any foreign diplomat, if found involved in the scam, in Pakistan because of the diplomatic immunity that may save them from any kind of criminal prosecution.