Dar asset accumulation case: Accountability Court reserves decision on suspects’ petition against indictment

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: An accountability court hearing the corruption reference on Monday against former finance minister Senator Ishaq Dar reserved its decision on the petition other accused against their indictment.

Accountability court Judge Mohammad Bashir, had on March 5 ordered to indict National Bank of Pakistan President Saeed Ahmed, Naeem Mehmood and Mansoor Rizvi on Monday (today).

All the three are accused in the supplementary reference filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against the PML-N leader.

Mehmood and Rizvi, two of the accused in the case had filed petitioned in the court last week against their planned indictment.

Their counsel had argued before the judge that NAB had provided their clients with a 700-page-long reference, many pages of which are unclear.

The accountability court had issued a notice to NAB to submit its response to the petition.

After hearing arguments from the suspects’ counsel Qazi Misbah, the court reserved its order on the matter.

Dar, a close aide of Pakistan Muslim League-N chief Nawaz Sharif, is accused of possessing assets disproportionate to his declared sources of income.

NAB filed an interim reference against Dar in September last year in light of the Supreme Court’s July 28, 2017, verdict in the Panama Papers case.

The recently-filed supplementary reference is based on seven volumes and includes the account details of the accused persons, with transactions amounting to $4.06 million, according to NAB’s Special Prosecutor Imran Shafiq.

Dar was recently re-elected to the Senate of Pakistan.