Former federal minister and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Hamid Saeed Kazmi has been released from Adiala Jail following his acquittal in the Hajj corruption case by the Islamabad High Court earlier on Monday.
Kazmi was sentenced to 12-year imprisonment in the Hajj corruption case, while former DG Hajj Rao Shakeel to 30 years imprisonment and former additional secretary to the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Aftab Ahmed, to a 12-year imprisonment. They were acquitted by the IHC on March 20.
Kazmi was an influential minister in the government of the Pakistan People’s Party that was in power from 2008-2013. He was charged with hiring a substandard building to house Pakistani pilgrims to Mecca in 2009, charging exorbitant rents from the travellers and receiving kickbacks.
The corruption scandal in Religious Affairs Ministry came to the fore between 2010 and 2012, leading to the dismissal of both Kazmi and Azam Swati from the then federal cabinet.
The minister and were accused of hiring a substandard building on exorbitant rent (for housing Pakistani pilgrims in Makkah) and receiving kickbacks in the process.
The former also spent nearly two years in prison over charges of irregularities in the 2009 Haj operation. Kazmi was subsequently indicted on charges of corruption in the case on May 30, 2012, to which he pleaded not guilty.
