The Font that Maligned Maryam Nawaz as a Forger


(by Adnan Khan Kakar)

Ms. Maryam Safdar provided the following two documents to JIT, claiming the same to be “Original Copies”

a) Nescoll/Nielsen Declaration

b) Coomber Declaration

JIT noticed that there were some obvious cuttings in the dates of the photocopied documents presented by the respondents in the Court. It got an expert opinion from London based “The Radley Forensic Document Laboratory (Forensice Handwriting & Document Examination Experts).

Mr. Ridley’s summarized opinion is

a) Both certified Declarations are bound with a staple and an eyelet binder in the top left hand corner which enclosed the pages of Declaration within a green triangular corner piece. I am firmly of the opinion that both of the documents have been unbound with the removal of the eyelet in each case and the removal a number of staples and then rebound using the same eyelets and a single staple per document.

b) I have identified the type font used to produce both certified Declarations as “Calibri”. However Calibri was not commercially available before 31st January 2007 and as such, neither of the originals of the certified Declarations is correctly dated and “happy” [sic] (apparently) to have been created at some later point in time.

c) It is not possible to determine when these copies would have been made unless, possibly, ink dating is undertaken.

JIT concluded that

a) The report prepared by the UK based (Forensic Handwriting & Document Examiner) proves, beyond any doubt that presented documents by respondents in the Supreme Court and the documents presented to the JIT by Ms. Maryam Safdar were tampered to mislead the Court to believe that they were signed in 2006, whereas they could not have been typed in that font in that year as it was not yet introduced.

b) The report by the Forensic Handwriting & Document Examiner further corroborates and substantiates the certified letter of Mr. Error George, which indicate that Ms. Maryam Safdar was Beneficial Owner of Neilson/Nescoll offshore companies (sole shareholders of Avenfield properties) and there was no trust or “Trustees”.

The final conclusion is that these documents are a work of forgery. In the other words, a font has “proven” Maryam as a forger.

Let us see if JIT’s British forensic expert is right or not that the Calibri font wasn’t available to the people before 31st Jan 2007.

This font’s designer Lucas De Groot tells on his website that: In 2002, Microsoft put together a virtual team of type designers and consultants to develop the ClearType Font Collection. The ClearType Font Collection was presented to the public in 2004 and became the typographic core of the Windows® Vista operating system and the MS Office suite.

ClearType Font Collection included fonts called Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas, Constantia and Corbel. The collection was presented to the masses through a brochure made by John Barry titled “Microsoft ClearType Font Collection” in 2004. In July 2005, the collection was made available as a public download on the internet. Now this collection, included Calibri font, could be used in any Windows XP or later program including word processors like MS Word 2003.

After the release of Windows Vista & Office 2007 in January 2007, their usage increased significantly.

The story of the Windows Vista is quite interesting. Vista was one of the most difficult and embarrassing projects of Mircosoft.  Work on Vista started in May 2001. After facing many setbacks and undergoing redesigns, it was finally delivered to OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) in November 2006. In the end of January 2007, it was made available to the public.

However hundreds of thousands people were already using it before its formal release. Major software like MS Windows are not abruptly released to the public. They undergo extensive testing cycles before going to the shelves. Initially beta versions are provided to a few selected individuals. After that the test releases are provided on a somewhat larger scale to developers and tester. After gaining significant confidence, these software are released as free Public Betas. During all that time, new features are being added and bugs removed in every subsequent test release.

First major version of Windows Vista was released in November 2004.  Hundreds of thousands of early adopters started using it. In 2005 Vista was released to the developer community through Microsoft’s Developer Network (MSDN). On 22nd February 2006, the final feature-complete version of Vista was released to the public. After that, no new feature was added and only bug fixes and performance enhancements were added to it. In May 2006 it was released as a free download for the general public. Each and every release got into the hands of tech-savvy populace through piracy network as well before May 2006 release.

Similarly first office version to use Calibri as the core font, ie, MS Office 2007, was available as a beta in 2005. In May 2006 it was provided to the masses as a free download. In January 2007 it was released as a commercial product.

It is obvious from the above paragraphs that since 2005, hundreds of thousands of people were using Calibri font and Windows Vista. As such it is wrong to say that “The report prepared by the UK based (Forensic Handwriting & Document Examiner) proves, beyond any doubt that presented documents by respondents in the Supreme Court and the documents presented to the JIT by Ms. Maryam Safdar were falsified to mislead the Court to believe that they were signed in 2006, whereas they could not have been typed in that font in that year as it was not yet introduced”.

It was possible for a person to use Calibri font in documents since 2005 when Calibri was released to the public as a finished product as part of ClearType Font Collection. The above history makes it obvious that labeling Maryam Safdar as a forger puts a big question mark on the investigative competence of JIT, if not on its malicious intentions.

Adnan Khan Kakar is an IT professional having an experience of more than 25 years.

 

عدنان خان کاکڑ

Facebook Comments - Accept Cookies to Enable FB Comments (See Footer).

عدنان خان کاکڑ

عدنان خان کاکڑ سنجیدہ طنز لکھنا پسند کرتے ہیں۔ کبھی کبھار مزاح پر بھی ہاتھ صاف کر جاتے ہیں۔ شاذ و نادر کوئی ایسی تحریر بھی لکھ جاتے ہیں جس میں ان کے الفاظ کا وہی مطلب ہوتا ہے جو پہلی نظر میں دکھائی دے رہا ہوتا ہے۔ Telegram: https://t.me/adnanwk2 Twitter: @adnanwk

adnan-khan-kakar has 1541 posts and counting.See all posts by adnan-khan-kakar