ISLAMABAD: An accountability court on Friday summoned former president and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari, his sister Faryal Talpur, Hussain Lawai, Anwar Majeed and others, to appear in court on April 8 in the fake accounts case.
A banking court had last week accepted the accountability watchdog’s plea to transfer the fake bank accounts case from Karachi to the accountability court in Islamabad for trial.
However, certain documents were found missing from the record transferred to Islamabad, and the documents submitted were also not in order. The registrar’s office had rejected the documents at the time and asked the Karachi court to file the documents again. The documents were resent and accepted by the accountability court on Thursday.
Last month, a NAB prosecutor had submitted a statement to the trial court on behalf of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Justice (r) Javed Iqbal, saying the investigation of the case had been transferred to the watchdog by the Supreme Court. He requested the banking court to transfer the proceedings to an accountability court in Islamabad as per the apex court’s order.
The registrar office of the accountability court conducted a scrutiny of the record transferred from the banking court and then referred it to Judge Arshad Malik.
Judge Malik issued the summons for all the accused persons in this case and adjourned further proceedings till April 8, when the court would commence formal proceedings in the fake accounts case.
Mohammad Bashir, another Islamabad-based accountability court judge, is also conducting proceedings in a related matter in which five accused namely Aftab Memon, Mohammad Bashir, Abdul Jabbar, Najam Zaman and Hassan Memon have been remanded to the custody of National Accountability Bureau (NAB). These five accused have been sent on physical remand till March 28.
