LAHORE: National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) President Saeed Ahmed appeared before the National Accountability Bureau (NAB)’s Lahore office on Monday.
Sources said a five-member NAB probe team questioned Ahmed for almost five hours.
Javed Kiani, a close associate of the Sharif family and chairman of the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association, was also summoned alongside Ahmed today. His questioning is still underway.
The bureau is pursuing several corruption references against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s family, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and others in light of the Supreme Court’s July 28 judgment in the Panama Papers case.
Dar has been summoned to appear before NAB officials pursuing the case on Tuesday (tomorrow).
Meanwhile, members of the Sharif family who were summoned to appear before the bureau on Sunday failed to do so. According to sources, the six-member team of NAB Lahore was waiting for the Sharif family members to question them over their apartments in Avenfield, London.
The team, headed by NAB Lahore Director General Shehzad Saleem, had summoned Nawaz’ children Hasan, Hussain and Maryam, and son-in-law Captain (retd) Safdar to appear by 2pm on Sunday.
NAB sources said another notice would be issued to the Sharif family members, adding that they will inform the Supreme Court in case they did not appear before them even then.
A day earlier, the bureau had written to the Supreme Court, requesting for permission to record the statements of members of Panama case Joint Investigation Team (JIT), sources added.
As per the request, NAB has said statements of the JIT members were required to file a reference against the Sharif family.
Earlier, NAB Lahore had requested the same, but Wajid Zia, the Federal Investigation Agency Additional Director who headed the JIT, responded saying the team had dissolved, therefore, the matter should be taken to the Supreme Court, sources in NAB had said.
When NAB summoned Hassan and Hussain Nawaz to file their replies pertaining to the bureau’s references against them, the brothers did not show up. Reports stated Hassan and Hussain would not appear until a verdict was passed on the review petitions submitted earlier by the family in the apex court.
NAB was conveyed the same in writing by the Sharif family’s legal team.
“My client Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif has been apprised of the above-cited notice today and instructed me to convey his inability to appear before the Combined Investigation Team as has already filed a review petition against the judgment dated 28.07.2017,” read the letter.
In its July 28 verdict, the five-member Supreme Court bench disqualified the then prime minister and ordered NAB to prepare and file a reference in an accountability court within six weeks against members of the Sharif family and others.
The accountability court was given six months to wrap up the proceedings.
It also requested the chief justice of Pakistan to nominate a judge of the Supreme Court to supervise and monitor implementation of the judgment and oversee proceedings of NAB and the accountability court. Justice Ijazul Ahsan, a member of the Panama case bench as well as the special implementation bench formed later, was made the monitoring judge by the Supreme Court.
