The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has formed a special team against Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-chairman and former president Asif Ali Zardari for his trial in the fake accounts case, a local news outlet reported on Sunday.
According to the report, a six-member special prosecution team has been constituted by the anti-corruption watchdog for the trial of six fake accounts references.
Deputy Prosecutor General Muzaffar Abbasi will head the team while Mudassar Naqvi will serve as the prosecutor in the money laundering and Park Lane references, Sohail Arif in illegal allotment reference, Waseem Javed in Pink Residency reference, Irfan Ahmad in Harish Company Reference and Mirza Usman Maqsood in Sindh Building Control Authority reference.
The deputy prosecutor general has also been directed to inform the NAB headquarters about developments in the references.
On October 6, the anti-graft watchdog’s Rawalpindi chapter had contacted a bank to seize assets worth Rs50 million of Aziz Tehseen, who is one of the accused in the fake accounts case.
Tehseen is accused of being a beneficiary of illegal tenders given out for solar street lights in Sindh.
The anti-graft watchdog has so far detained 42 people in the case, including Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur. Senior PPP leadership, Omni Group’s Anwar Majeed and his son Abdul Ghani Majeed, former Pakistan Stock Exchange chairman Hussain Lawai and Summit Bank Senior Vice-President Taha Raza are among those being investigated in cases related to the fake accounts scandal. The matter is also being heard by the Supreme Court (SC).
The case was transferred to Islamabad after a Karachi banking court accepted NAB’s transfer request filed following the apex court’s judgement forwarding the joint investigation team (JIT) report to the bureau with directions to investigate and file references.
Zardari remained in NAB’s remand till August 16 when the accountability court sent him to judicial remand after NAB prosecutor Muzaffar Abbasi apprised the court of new developments in the case.
Consequently, he was moved to Adiala Jail. Talpur, on the other hand, was shifted from Islamabad’s Polyclinic Hospital to Adiala Jail at midnight on August 12.
On August 19, the defence counsel lamented before the court that his clients were ill-treated in jail.
