BUSINESS DEALINGS
The Globe and Mail, Tuesday, June 12, 2007
OMAR EL AKKAD AND SONYA FATAH
RICHMOND HILL, ONT., NEW DELHI — The Pakistani government minister who faces charges of wrongful confinement in the sudden death of a Canadian woman says he has been wrongly accused, and blames the woman’s financial stress and depression for her death.
But Muhammad Shahid Jamil Qureshi, Pakistan’s Minister of State for Communications, added to the confusion surrounding his relationship with businesswoman Kafila Siddiqui in an interview with The Globe and Mail yesterday.
He and Ms. Siddiqui were not business partners, he said. Yet Canadian corporate records show that a person with the same name is listed as a co-director, along with Ms. Siddiqui, of two Ontario-based companies.
Yesterday police in Islamabad charged Mr. Qureshi. Ms. Siddiqui, a 40-year-old mother of a five-year-old son, was declared dead shortly after being brought to a hospital by Mr. Qureshi on Saturday.
She had been living at the minister’s house.
“We have registered a case against the minister this afternoon, on charges of wrongful confinement,” police Senior Superintendent Zafar Iqbal said in an interview.
Mustafa Qayyum, the complainant in the case and Ms. Siddiqui’s brother, alleges that the minister held his sister against her will for three months.
Mr. Qureshi, a member of the Pakistan Muslim League founded by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, said in the interview that the responsibility for Ms. Siddiqui’s death lies with her husband and family.
When Ms. Siddiqui returned from a trip to Canada last February, he said, she was very depressed: “She said that her husband had verbally divorced her.”
Ms. Siddiqui’s husband, Salman Qaiser, could not be reached for comment. A brother of Mr. Qaiser had said in an interview Sunday that Mr. Qaiser was in Karachi arranging his wife’s funeral.
Mr. Qureshi said that he first met Ms. Siddiqui when the minister represented Pakistan at a joint venture conference in Toronto in May of 2005 that was organized by Ms. Siddiqui.
In the months before her death, Mr. Qureshi said, Ms. Siddiqui was renting the ground-floor section of his home in Islamabad’s G-11 sector, but was practically bankrupt. He said he was assisting her financially.
Police have asked to see the rental agreement between the two, which Mr. Qureshi said was in her name.
Mr. Qureshi denied suggestions that the two were romantically involved. “She was very religious,” he said, “and, in fact, during the last few months she was in such a deep depression that she had stopped eating and drinking, and only consumed dates and ab-e-zamzam (holy water).”
Police found vomit in the room that Ms. Siddiqui last occupied, but an initial postmortem proved inconclusive.In Canada, Ms. Siddiqui appears to have been involved in an elaborate series of interconnected consulting companies.
She is listed as the chair and CEO of Global Reach International Business Development Inc. Canada, a self-described event-management company. The company’s website no longer exists, although a 2005 copy of the site describes Ms. Siddiqui as having 13 years of sales and marketing experience.
Her website biography lists her as a member of a number of trade organizations. However, none of her memberships could be independently confirmed, and some of the trade organizations listed could not be found. According to the biography, Ms. Siddiqui also earned an MBA, although no educational institute is listed.
Mr. Qaiser is listed as the company’s “Executive Vice President Finance.”
Ms. Siddiqui and her husband are also listed as directors of another company: Orients Worldwide Consultants Inc. The company’s address is the same as the couple’s Richmond Hill home address.
Mr. Qureshi said that he had stayed at the home during a visit to Toronto, but that he and Ms. Siddiqui were not business partners.
Another two companies, Orients Worldwide Legal Services Inc. and Orients Worldwide Group of Companies Ltd., are also listed at the same address. Ms. Siddiqui is named as a director of both companies.
The other named director is “M. Shahid Jamil Qureshi.” On corporate records, Mr. Qureshi’s address is that of the Qaiser/Siddiqui family home in Richmond Hill.
Popularity: 4% [?]
