ISLAMABAD (Online): The son of Chief Justice, Arslan Iftikhar Chaudhary, has denied all the charges against him leveled by business tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain by saying that he is a honest businessman and God helped him. He gave an exclusive interview to a foreign media.
A real estate tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain, a businessman with connections at the highest levels of Pakistani government, military, security services, and media claims that Chaudhry's son, Arsalan Iftikhar, has blackmailed him out of $3.63 million over a three-year period.
He termed all the allegation as a trap and propaganda against his father, the top jurist of the country.In the years since, Arslan has abandoned his medical background and moved into the world of business. "I was a physician, but I never practiced..I never took it as a proper profession so I started my own entrepreneurial thing," he told foreign TV channel.
He says he is now in the telecommunications business -- "the operation management and maintenance of the network of the telecom side."
As he did before, Arslan Iftikhar vehemently denies the current allegations. "Nobody ever helped me. My father is not the sort who will ever help me in anything in my businesses. I work hard and God helps me in my work.Whatever I have earned, it's all black and white. I'm an honest businessman and I pay my taxes and I will prove this", Arslan added.
This time, however, the allegations come with what is said to be actual proof. According to MAilk Riaz Hussain, Arslan Iftikhar used him for trips and hotel stays in London and Monte Carlo. He has produced receipts, housing agreements and even passport and flight details -- all of which indicate a rather expensive lifestyle: stays at the London Hilton Park Lane and Monte Carlo's Hotel de Paris, and car rentals of a top model Range Rover during his stay in London.
"These documents have no authenticity," Arslan Iftikhar told the journalist In fact, the trips to London and Monte Carlo, according to him, were arranged not through Malik Riaz but through a businessman named Ahmed Khalil and his London-based cousin Zaid Rehman.
Aside from the allegations of improper exchanges of money, Ardslan has been rumored to be cavorting with Khalil's wife, Sara Hanif, in Monte Carlo -- an allegation Arslan Iftikhar takes great exception to, being a newlywed of just a few months.
He said that thats totally rubbish and bullshit. Sara is like his sister.Judging by Arslan description of Khalil as a "friend who ended up like a Brutus," it would appear that he was not aware of Khalil's apparent relationship with Malik Riaz, or at the very least trusted his ex-friend enough to not think anything of borrowing money from him, as he tells it. "I always paid back," Iftikhar says. "I paid him and I told him that if there are any other payments to be made from my side, he said that his conscience is clear, with a period of time, he will prove himself.