Pakistani chief justice's son accused of taking gifts to influence father

Arsalan Iftikhar Chaudhry allegedly promised to influence his father’s rulings. Photograph: T Mughal/EPA

Luxury flats in London, hotels in Park Lane and gambling debts in Monte Carlo: rarely has corruption and influence-peddling in Pakistan been more embarrassingly laid bare than in the documents presented to the country's supreme court.

In page after page of official deposition, one of Pakistan's richest men cheerfully itemised how he bankrolled a playboy lifestyle for the son of the country's top judge. The young man had allegedly promised to influence his father's rulings.

According to the receipts set out in the 83-page document, the property developer Malik Riaz Hussain showered gifts and cash worth more than £2m on Arsalan Iftikhar Chaudhry, a 32-year-old businessman.

His father, the chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, has long enjoyed hero status among many Pakistanis as the freewheeling scourge of some of the country's most powerful people and institutions. Now he finds himself on the receiving end of corruption allegations, even if so far only his son is directly implicated.

According to the deposition, Iftikhar promised a friend of Hussain's son-in-law that he had inside information about investigations launched by his father into Bahria Town, a private company that builds sprawling luxury housing estates for retired military officers and the wealthy elite.

"[Iftikhar could] manage to resolve the said cases in favour of Bahria Town … and on the said pretext repeatedly got favours in different shapes on one pretext of the other," Hussain's statement said.

Those favours are laid out in pages of paperwork that records everything spent during three all-expenses-paid trips to London by Iftikhar and other unnamed members of the chief justice's family, in the form of receipts, airline tickets and tenancy agreements.

On the first trip, in the summer of 2010, a three-bedroom flat was rented in Portman Square for a month for £40,000, and a luxury Range Rover was hired for transport around town.

The party made a four-day side-trip to Monte Carlo where Iftikhar gambled in the casino of the Hotel de Paris, losing his wealthy benefactor €10,000 (£8,800) in cash.

Trips the following year included stays at a luxury hotel and a flat off Park Lane costing £4,000 a week.

During a chaotic press conference held after the court hearing, Hussain said the chief justice had been warned of his son's activities more than six months previously, but nothing was done. He warned of more revelations to follow.

"I'll disclose things that will make people realise what's happening in Pakistan," said Hussain. "The president tried to stop me going with this. No one except Allah is with me." In his affidavit, Hussain said he had been "blackmailed" by the chief justice's son, and said he had not made his revelations at the behest of either the ruling party or the army, both of which might have cause to damage the judge. Arsalan has denied the allegations.

Among other recent cases, Chaudhry has tried to force the prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, to revisit dormant corruption allegations against the president, Asif Ali Zardari, and humiliated the all-powerful Inter-Services Intelligence military spy agency over election-rigging charges. The chief justice's office prevents him making statements outside court, meaning he has struggled to disassociate himself from the claims against his son. Initially he presided over the case himself, during which he swore on the Qur'an that he had no knowledge of his son's business affairs. However, he later stepped down after complaints of a conflict of interest.

The case has focused unprecedented attention on Hussain, a powerful multimillionaire said to be the 12th richest man in Pakistan, who rose from humble origins to control a vast property empire favoured by the military and who now travels around the world in a private jet emblazoned with the name Bahria Town 001.

In a country where public services either do not exist or are in a state of collapse, luxury developments that boast private fire services and manicured lawns are in demand from those who can afford to pay. There are Bahria developments in Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Lahore, the latter based on a replica of Trafalgar Square complete with a Nelson's Column.

One of Pakistan's anti-corruption bodies is investigating claims that much of the land on which Bahria Town was built was illegally "grabbed" and sold on for vast profit.

The court deposition suggests Hussain was disappointed that he failed to get rid of his legal problems through his largesse towards the chief justice's son. "I did not get any relief whatsoever in the [cases] pending before this august court, contrary to the assurances and promises made by [Iftikhar]," he said.