Rehman, the News daily alleged, used the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for kidnapping businessmen, bankers and political opponents of Sharif and obtaining false confessions from them to settle "personal scores".

"Sources believe that Sharif had first-hand information about Saif's involvement in kidnapping of some reputed citizens as he ignored strong complaints against this nasty operation even from cabinet colleagues," the paper alleged.

It said when the FIA kidnapped Farooq Hasan, owner of the Karachi-based Hasan Associates, last year and locked him in a Saif-run safe house in Islamabad, former federal minister Halim Siddiqi rushed to Sharif.

Siddiqi's pleas went unheeded and Hasan had to stay for about a week in Saif's dungeon. He was onlyreleased when he signed a confessional statement prepared by Saif's lieutenant at the Ehtesab cell relating to dealings of the AES power plant with the erstwhile Benazir Bhutto government, the paper said.

"Throughout his confinement Hasan was physically abused, mentally tortured and not allowed to sleep. Sources said that he was kept and interrogated at Saif's personal residence in Islamabad."

Jamil Ansari, chief executive of a famous trading and business group in Karachi, was yet another leading citizen to be kidnapped last year by the FIA while he was about to board a Karachi-bound flight from Islamabad.

This case too was brought to Sharif's knowledge by a cabinet colleague who thought such daylight kidnappings would bring the ruling Pakistan Muslim league (PML) into disrepute, but he ignored it.

Sources said for more than a week, as his family panicked, Ansari, a businessman, was questioned for his friendship with a high-ranking naval official.

It said the FIA was also involved in the kidnappingof Shahzad Sherry, a well-known international banker from Karachi. Like other victims, Sherry was also swiftly shifted to Islamabad, where he was locked up at a government-run safe house.