Former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, an accused in the infamous Rental Power Projects case, will appear before the investigation team of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) today (Tuesday) to record his statement.
Moreover, some media reports claimed that the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had also barred the former prime minister and other accused in the Rs 22 billion RPPs scam case from leaving Pakistan.
“The FIA has ordered all airports in the country as well as immigration authorities to ensure that all the accused in the RPP case, including Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, do not leave Pakistan,” the report added.
A source in NAB told Pakistan Today that the former premier had been summoned by NAB in the RPPs case and he would appear before its investigators today.
Asked whether NAB had also approached the FIA with a request to put the names of all accused in the case on the exit-control list (ECL), the NAB official responded in the affirmative and said that the request had been placed with the Interior Ministry sometime ago.
“Since the matter is sub-judice, I cannot make an official confirmation,” the source said when asked for an official response on the subject.
Earlier, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had filed a reference in the RPPs case. In March, the Supreme Court (SC) had also issued a contempt of court notice to the former premier for trying to influence the court by writing a letter to Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry for forming a commission to investigate the scam.
On January 18, Kamran Faisal, an investigation officer of the country’s premier anti-corruption body NAB, was found dead in his residence under mysterious circumstances.
The NAB officer was assisting Investigation Officer Asghar Khan in the country’s mega corruption scandal.
His body was found hanging from the ceiling fan. Sources in NAB said the officer had been under strain for being part of the RPPs case and NAB officers had also accused the top government officials for using pressurising tactics to halt the investigation process.
Later, the postmortem report claimed Faisal had committed suicide.
On January 28, in an apparent bid to build pressure on the SC to suspend the proceedings against Ashraf and the other co-accused in the case, NAB Chairman Fasih Bokhari had also submitted a letter to President Asif Ali Zardari, accusing the judiciary of “pressurising” him to take action against some “senior government officials”.
In his letter, a copy of which had also disseminated to the media, Bokhari had contended that he would be forced to tender his resignation if “these issues were not addressed expeditiously”.
Later, the SC had taken notice of the matter and Bokhari had been issued a contempt notice by the court. The matter is sub-judice.