Ex-politician accused of killing GTA woman says money woes drove her to dark spiritualism
The Toronto Star, December 14, 2007
SONYA FATAH
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan–Until this past summer, Shahid Jamil Qureshi was enjoying the perks of being a state minister in President Pervez Musharraf’s government, hailed as the bright light of his party’s leadership.
But now, accused of killing a Canadian-Pakistani businesswoman, he has spent the last six months in jail in the company of thousands of criminals, some 30 kilometres from the spacious, leafy Islamabad suburb where he used to live.
“I have been the victim of a media witch hunt,” a sombre Qureshi said in an exclusive jailhouse interview.
How Kafila Siddiqui, 39, died has been shrouded in mystery ever since Qureshi brought her body to an Islamabad hospital on June 8.
It’s a tangled tale that stretches from Greater Toronto’s Pakistani-Canadian community to the political elites of Pakistan.
Police have charged Qureshi, 40, with illegal confinement and murder. Qureshi shared his version of what happened from behind the padlocked gates of Adyala, a facility that houses 6,500 inmates despite having a capacity for only 1,700.
Siddiqui had not been held against her will, Qureshi insisted. Instead, he said, financial and emotional distress had gradually driven her to solitude and spiritualism.
He’s been locked up, he said, because he knows the names of a long list of influential people who visited Siddiqui because they thought she had spiritual powers and were afraid of being exposed.
He says he’s hesitant to reveal their names because he is waiting for an opportune moment to help secure his own release after members of his political party deserted him following Siddiqui’s death.
His claim that Siddiqui had spiritual powers is dismissed by her husband, Salman Qaiser, a medical sales representative living in Richmond Hill.
“I have no hesitation to admit that Kafila became more religious after performing hajj (the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca) in 2004, but she was never into black magic things or even discussions,” said Qaiser, who married Siddiqui in 1997.
“She was a dynamic social lady and was very ambitious about her future business ventures.”
Siddiqui went to live in Islamabad because she saw great business opportunities. After she and her husband started working on setting up Global Reach 2005, a conference to create links between Canadian investment and Pakistani business, their financial troubles seemed to grow, Qureshi said.
“She had the political and financial connections to make the conference happen, but they were in financial trouble right from the start and their relations were strained,” Qureshi said. “They took a loan out that they were unable to pay.”
Subsequent business transactions also went sour, with creditors hounding Siddiqui for payments, he said. Her family, Qureshi said, was looking to Siddiqui to make it big.
Her husband flatly denied the couple was having financial difficulties.
” There wasn’t any financial problems for me,” Qaiser said. “I was taking care of all my bills and everything. We had not defaulted. We never filed any bankruptcy. We were never investigated for any fraud or anything. There were no creditors lined up.”
Siddiqui arrived in Pakistan hoping to mine business contracts in the capital but quickly found herself in debt, Qureshi said. A year into her two-year house lease, Qureshi said he began paying the rent.
“I helped her out not because I’m an idiot. … I thought she was going to make some serious business, and many of her projects almost came through. I didn’t give her charity. I was also hoping to reap a return on investment.”
The financial worries turned into a security threat, Qureshi said, that forced him to move in with her.
“There was one deal in particular that was meant to go through, and it didn’t. She had taken token money of $15,000 upfront but had been unable to complete the deal. These guys threatened her with dire consequences, and demanded that she repay them immediately.
“By April she had sunk into so much debt that she began to withdraw,” said Qureshi.
According to her husband, it was Qureshi who was denying everybody access to Siddiqui.
“What the heck was he doing there?” Qaiser said. “Why didn’t he seek any help or support for her? What’s his role there?”
But Qureshi insists that being incommunicado was Siddiqui’s choice and not a result of force imposed on her.
“She stopped checking her emails, she moved into the small room, she withdrew into reading the Qur’an, and didn’t want to be disturbed. I was travelling back and forth on work, and I just left her alone.”
Qureshi also alleges that Siddiqui became deeply involved in a strange kind of spiritualism with a spiritual doctor.
“She believed her in-laws had done black magic on her,” he said.
Qaiser said that allegation is just another part of a made-up story.
“We had been living very happily for over 10 years and our marriage was ideal,” said Qaiser. “But (Qureshi) himself did something. I don’t know,” he added.
“Whatever he talked about Kafila’s and my relations, our loans, debt, black magic, spiritual doctor … is all nonsense.”
With files from Joanna Smith and Fayyaz Walana in Toronto
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