A lawyer for the rich, by the rich and from the rich, Azhar Siddique has come a long way from humble beginnings when his clients used to be petty criminals.
Now, Siddique defends the creme de la creme of delinquents, those accused of robbing the state of billions of rupees whilst abusing their privileged positions.
Professional lawyers always defend those accused of breaking the law and there is certainly nothing wrong with it but when a band of organised miscreants unite and take refuge provided by a single practitioner of the law, a lot of questions arise.
Perhaps it is because common secrets cannot be shared with too many people and when the stakes are so high, trust and loyalty supersede expectations of competence or even professionalism.
Azhar Siddique has become the go-to man whenever Malik Riaz, Imran Khan or Farah Gogi are in trouble.
Whether it’s defending Imran Khan in the Toshakhana scandal or using the law as a sword to defend Farah Gogi or Malik Riaz pertaining to their role in Khan’s alleged theft of the Graff set, you will find Azhar Siddique readily available to offer his legal services.
Perhaps it is just a coincidence and that the billionaire trio have appointed Azhar Siddique as a legal counsel simply because of his extraordinary legal skills, which supersede the greatest legal minds of all time.
But according to Imran Khan himself, Azhar Siddique submitted his forged signatures in the court of the Honourable Tariq Saleem Sheikh in an affidavit pertaining to protests outside the Election Commission of Pakistan.
When Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh had found that the signatures in Imran Khan’s power of attorney and affidavit attached with the petition did not match, he had threatened contempt proceedings, leading Imran Khan to claim that his counsel, Azhar Siddique had presented forged signatures in the Lahore High Court.
Would any professional lawyer present forged signatures of their client before the court? What would happen to the reputation of such a lawyer?
Or would any professional lawyer choose to represent a client after the client publicly accuses them of sharing forged signatures?
Dynamics get murky in the intra-elite battles perhaps only lawyers like Azhar Siddique truly understand.
Casually ignoring Imran Khan’s allegations of forging his signature, Azhar Siddique continues to represent not just Imran Khan but also his closest associates, Malik Riaz and Farah Gogi.
When Farah Gogi and her husband, Ahsan Jameel Gujjar were issued a call-up notice by the Federal Investigative Agency which wanted to investigate money laundering allegations against the couple after billions worth of suspicious transactions were found, guess who came up to represent them?
Azhar Siddique came to the rescue, arguing that FIA had no jurisdiction and that his clients could not appear since they were abroad.
It is only natural for Imran Khan’s close associate Farah Gogi to be represented by Azhar Siddique but what about Malik Riaz, the man Imran Khan used to himself accuse him of high-level corruption and bribery?
Not many knew how entrenched Malik Riaz was in PTI, even after a leaked audio with Asif Zardari showed Malik Riaz asking for support for PTI.
But when Malik Riaz hired Azhar Siddique to sue The Pakistan Daily and myself for reporting that Farah Gogi travelled on a Bahria Town plane to sell the Graff Set gifted by Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman, the missing piece of the puzzle was finally revealed.
Analysts believe that Azhar Siddique is the missing link which formally connects Malik Riaz, Imran Khan as well as Farah Gogi.
Given Siddique’s recent politics in favour of PTI, it begs the question of whether Malik Riaz is funding Siddique to support PTI, or whether it is because of Imran Khan’s favour that Siddique got high-paying clients like Farah Gogi and Malik Riaz.
But for a lawyer who still can’t even distinguish the educational credentials of the person his client is suing and their counsel, as if simply unable to comprehend a few sentences in English, Azhar Siddique truly has come a long way, proving that wheeling dealing always beats professional competence in our homeland.
