Imran Khan, other PTI leaders to feature in documentary Behind Closed Doors on the Sharif family

A documentary titled Behind Closed Doors is set to release online soon and will see some familiar faces, including former premier Imran Khan, Fawad Chaudhry Shahzad Akbar, journalist Irfan Hashmi and others talking about the Sharif family and their alleged corruption.

The official trailer has been released on YouTube and sees several PTI leaders in it. The less than two-minute long trailer opens with Kenyan journalist John-Allan Namu saying, “How it has been described is that there has been one rule for the elite especially the elite that is connected to power and other for everybody else, I think I will leave it at that,” followed by a quote by Frédéric Bastiat, a former member of the National Assembly of France.

It also featured a short clip of journalist Arshad Sharif saying, “Accounts were opened in the name of these low-level low wage employees who do not come into the tax net. Money used to be deposited in those accounts and finally they used to land in the accounts of either Mr Hamza Shahbaz, Mr Salman Shahbaz or Mr Shehbaz Sharif himself. They said people used to come with gunmen into the banks.”

The trailer also featured a clip of Emin Huseynov, an Azerbaijani journalist, narrating how the first person who revealed huge corruption was killed at the front door of his house.

The scene transitions to a clip of TRT World and journalist Hashmi calling London the second “house of Sharif” with another journalist talking more about London’s role in the offshore world, calling it “a money launderer’s paradise”.

The documentary has been directed by Michael Oswald, produced and written by Murtaza Mehdi.

Chaudhry, the former minister of information and broadcasting, shared the trailer on Twitter and announced that Behind Closed Doors is “coming soon”.

Sayed Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari, Taimur Khan Jhagra and Muhammad Basharat Raja also took to Twitter to share the trailer.

In his tweet, Jhagra claimed that the documentary is coming soon to either Netflix or Amazon Prime. “The truth is out there. In Pakistan, sadly it just seems to lead back the same people to corridors of power, again and again,” he wrote.

Bukhari wrote that he cannot wait for the much awaited documentary “about the corruption of the elite” and congratulated the Sharif family for making the cut.

According to the official website of Behind Closed Doors, the documentary highlights “Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs), people who hold a public function and as a result present higher risks of being involved in bribery or corruption.” It also mentions the offshore leaks which have revealed that PEPs use the British financial system and offshore jurisdictions to launder, hide and re-invest their wealth into the global financial system.

“But what happens when a developing country fights back and attempts to get Britain to return the money that it claims has been stolen?” question the documentary makers.

While several members of the PTI camp have claimed Behind Closed Doors will be featured on Netflix, the streaming service has made no such announcement nor have the makers of the documentary mentioned it on their website or YouTube channel.