KARACHI – Justice Sajjad Ali Shah was on Tuesday assigned to conduct an inquiry over the acquittal of suspects in a money laundering case and submit his detailed report before March 11. Sindh High Court (SHC) Chief Justice Mushir Alam has initiated a probe on the directives of Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who took suo motu notice of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Director General’s allegations regarding the acquittal of the suspects in the Khanani and Kalia case.
The FIA director general, while appearing before the Senate’s Standing Committee on Interior, had claimed that a large sum of money was used for the release of the suspects as there was adequate proof of their involvement in money laundering.
Insiders said that the complete record of the said case has been obtained by the SHC and Shah has initiated the inquiry.
They claimed that in the banking court’s proceeding, evidences recorded by the witnesses were changed to confirm the acquittal of the alleged accused persons. The case against the suspects was complete as there was sufficient evidence and records available, they added. On March 4, a special banking court had exonerated four foreign exchange dealers and as many bank officials from the charges of falsification of bank accounts for the purpose of money laundering.
The four foreign exchange dealers – Abdul Munaf Kalia, his brother Hanif Kalia, Javed Khanani and Atif Polani – were accused of opening bogus bank accounts for unlawful transfer of millions of dollars abroad with the help of Masood Abbas, Syed Wajahat Ali, Tasleem Ahmed and Arifur Rehman of Allied Bank, Habib Bank and MyBank, respectively.
