–NAB declares Talpur’s residence as sub-jail, will produce PPP senior leader in court on Saturday
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) senior leader Faryal Talpur, the sister of former president Asif Zardari who was arrested by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) earlier this week, was taken into NAB custody here on Friday in the fake accounts case.
A five-member NAB team, including female officials, reached Zardari House in Islamabad, which was notified as a sub-jail by NAB Chairman Justice (r) Javed Iqbal earlier in the day “for the purposes of detention of accused under the NAO, 1999”, according to a notification issued by the accountability watchdog.
Zardari was arrested on Monday after cancellation of his pre-arrest bail by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) in the fake bank accounts case, prompting a strong reaction from the opposition and sporadic protests by PPP workers in various parts of the country, mostly in Sindh.
The NAB said the grounds for arresting Zardari included whitening ill-gotten money through fake accounts, acquiring stakes in Summit Bank through fraudulent means, using Omni Group as a hedge between himself and fake accounts, receiving millions of rupees from two fake accounts, and getting unauthorised payments released for construction of a Karachi plot.
Zardari is currently on physical remand in NAB custody. NAB sources said that investigators, after their questioning of Zardari, had concluded that Talpur’s arrest was “unavoidable”.
Zardari spent 11 years in jail on corruption and murder charges before becoming president in 2008. But he was never convicted and has continued to deny any wrongdoing.
Talpur will be produced before an accountability court on Saturday to seek her physical remand.
FAKE ACCOUNTS SAGA:
Information regarding the fake accounts were disclosed when an intelligence agency arrested a prominent money changer for investigation in another matter. During December 2015, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has been reported to begin a discreet investigation into certain bank accounts through which multi-billion rupee transactions were made.
The probe was initially shelved but resumed almost a year and a half later with the FIA’s State Bank circle initiating a formal inquiry in January 2018. By June, the FIA had several high-profile names on its list but was unable to make headway–for several reasons.
Top court intervened in the matter while former chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar took suo motu notice over lackluster performance in the money-laundering case. Consequently, close aides of Zardari, including Hussain Lawai, Taha Raza and two others were arrested. Subsequently, the first case was registered in the mega-corruption scandal.
Saqib Nisar issued directives to form a Joint Investigation Team in order to accelerate pace of the investigation in the scam which identified as many as 11,500 bank accounts and a total of 924 account holders at the start of their investigation.
JIT REPORT:
According to the JIT report, experts generated 59 Suspected Transaction Reports (STR) and 24,500 Cash Transaction Reports which means the transactions were flagged as suspicious. Then the JIT decided on a threshold of Rs10 million to track, follow and minutely investigate the flow of funds beyond the immediate counterparties and determine the source of funds and ultimate beneficiaries.
During the probe the JIT questioned as many as 767 individuals including Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur whereas Bilawal submitted written responses before the Team.
