Shahbaz 'tipped off' LeT: WikiLeaks

Fav Tag: Wikileaks NEW YORK: President Asif Ali Zardari alleged that the Chief Minister Punjab Mian Shahbaz Sharif "tipped off" the banned outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) about impending UN sanctions following the 2008 Mumbai attacks, allowing the outfit to empty its bank accounts before they could be raided, US embassy cables revealed.

Six weeks after gunmen killed more than 170 people in Mumbai, President Asif Ali Zardari told the US of his "frustration" that Sharif's government in Punjab province helped the group evade new UN sanctions.

A month earlier, Shahbaz Sharif, who is chief minister of Punjab, "tipped off" the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), LeT's charity wing, "resulting in almost empty bank accounts", Zardari claimed in a conversation with the US ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson.

US diplomats were unable to confirm the allegation and noted that they came at a time of rising political tension between Zardari and Sharif. But they conceded that JuD did appear to have received a warning from somewhere.

"Information from the ministry of the interior does indicate that bank accounts contained surprisingly small amounts," said the cable in January 2009. A Punjab government spokesman vigorously denied the charge.

"There's nothing true in it," said senator Pervaiz Rashid, an adviser to Sharif.

"Zardari is our political opponent and he wants to topple our government." Sharif couldn't have known about the UN sanctions, he said, because the UN coordinated its action with the federal government and not the provincial one.