KARACHI: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) team on Monday interrogated former federal minister for ports and shipping Kamran Michael regarding contracts he had approved while heading the ministry.
According to reports, the NAB officials interrogated the former minister about a man named Imran Shah who had given a statement against Michael.
The ex-minister was questioned about the amount in his accounts which, they NAB alleges to be, beyond his known sources of income.
“I’ve no idea how the money was transferred [into my accounts],” Michael was quoted as telling the NAB officials by reports.
The bureau is likely to present Michael before the accountability court in Karachi on Tuesday (Feb 12).
Meanwhile, the NAB Karachi transferred Senator Michael to Karachi earlier in the day. Michael, who was on a transit remand in the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) plots allotment case, was shifted to Karachi through a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight.
An accountability court in Lahore had approved five-day remand of the accused over plea of the accountability watchdog after his arrest.
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 a huge bribe. The former minister allegedly abused his authority by influencing the officials to carry out illegal orders to make allotments in 2013.
A corruption reference with respect to 16 such plots was already filed by NAB Karachi in which evidence was unearthed against Michael for receiving bribes, reports claimed,
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 leader, according to reports.
Michael has served as a minister for statistics in former PM Abbasi’s cabinet from August 2017 to May 2018. He has also served as the minister for human rights in the third tenure of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif from 2013 to 2017. Michael held the portfolio of minister for ports and shipping from 2013 to 2016.
He was elected as a member of the Senate on a minorities seat in 2012 and then re-elected to the Senate on a reserved seat for non-Muslims from Punjab in the 2018 Senate election.
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.
