LAHORE: An accountability court on Saturday granted the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) five-day transit remand of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Senator Kamran Michael.
Michael, who was arrested a day earlier by NAB for misusing his authority as a federal minister, will be shifted to Karachi for investigation.
Kamran Michael has been serving in the Senate on a minority seat since 2012. He had held ministries in the governments of former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.
Earlier this week, NAB arrested Punjab minister Aleem Khan, a senior leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). The bureau has also arrested PML-N leaders Shehbaz Sharif, Saad Rafique and Salman Rafique in corruption cases.
Michael has reportedly been charged with illegally getting three commercial plots on prime locations of KPT Cooperative Housing Society in Mai Kolachi area of Karachi to his accomplices against which he allegedly received bribes of over Rs1 billion. The former minister allegedly abused his authority by influencing the officials to carry out illegal orders to make allotments in 2013.
In May 2018, the NAB had reportedly launched a probe against Michael for allegedly accumulating assets beyond his known sources of income during his stint as the ports and shipping minister. The accountability watchdog’s Karachi and Lahore bureaus had gathered evidence against the PML-N senator, according to reports.
In January 2016, the Lahore High Court had ordered the police concerned to register a case against Michael for allegedly embezzling money on the pretext of selling the Holy Trinity Church in Murree.