Interview regarding CJP concocted: Malik Riaz

The Malik Riaz-Dr Arsalan Iftikhar controversy on Friday took another turn when Zahid Bokhari, counsel of the real estate tycoon, on behalf of his client rejected media reports and said the interview of Malik Riaz published in a newspaper on Friday was untrue.
Talking to a private television channel, Zahid Bukhari said that Malik Riaz called him to inform that he had not given any interview to any newspaper, TV channel or a journalist. “Malik Riaz is ill and would record his detailed statement before the court as soon as the doctors give him permission to do so,” he told the TV channel. “I submit to the order of the court and will adhere to it,” Bokhari quoted Malik Riaz telling him.
Zahid Bukhari, the counsel for business tycoon Malik Riaz, said that his client has refuted all the statements released by the media. While talking to a private television channel, he said that his client Malik Riaz would soon come to Pakistan and submit his statement in the court. Some TV anchors and journalists had claimed to have met Malik Riaz and seen the documentary evidence involving Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry’s son Dr Arsalan for having taken huge financial benefits from the real estate tycoon, who, they also claimed, had lost his patience when his cases pending with the Supreme Court had not been settled, prompting him to make this explosive disclosure in frustration. They claimed that Malik Riaz had also shown this evidence to Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, who, they said, was shocked to see it and wept. While Dr Arsalan rejected that he had received any favours from Malik Riaz, a million-dollar question remains unanswered that as to how he established a huge business worth Rs 400 million in just three to four years.
But Malik Riaz’s rejection of the media reports and the interview attributed to him also suggests that if it was a conspiracy to trap the chief justice it appears to have backfired with the top judge taking a suo motu notice of the issue before it could have been blown out of proportion. Questions are also being raised about Zahid Bokhari, who was also the counsel of Husain Haqqani in the memo case, for being engaged by Malik Riaz, again a close friend of President Asif Ali Zardari.