LONDON/DUBAI – A Lahore judicial magistrate has ruled that a case of the kidnapping of his own two minor daughters against businessman and Liberia’s Ambassador-at-Large Umar Farooq Zahoor, Sadaf Naz and Muhammad Zubair should not have been registered in Lahore by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in the first place.
Ghulam Murtaza Virk, Judicial Magistrate Section-30 of Lahore, said in his order that the alleged kidnapping of teens Zainab and Zuneira, took place in Karachi around 14 years ago according to the prosecution therefore the proper forum for the prosecution of the case should be Karachi, not Lahore.
The judge said in his Order: “Therefore, this court at Lahore has got no jurisdiction to decide this case, hence, the file of this case along with all the enclosures and evidence is returned to the prosecution to file it before proper forum.”
Umar Farooq Zahoor has maintained that her former wife Sophia Mirza conspired with former accountability minister Shahzad Akbar and FIA’s director (late) Dr Rizwan in June 2020 and registered fake cases of money laundering and kidnapping against him to set the FIA on him, unleashing a campaign of revenge. And today’s Order of Learned Magistrate has vindicated his stance that Shahzad Akbar has put his authority to wrong use by forcing FIA Lahore to register false cases against him despite the fact that FIA Lahore lacked the jurisdiction.
The Magistrate was hearing the case related to the accusation by former model Sophia Mirza who had complained that her former husband Umar Farooq Zahoor with help of his friends Sadaf Naz and Muhammad Zubair arranged the kidnapping of the couple’s minor daughters to Dubai in September 2009 after their marriage fell apart.
The Order notes that as per Sadaf Naz’s petition there is an unexplained delay of over 10 years in registering the FIR in the alleged offence that took place between in 2009 in Karachi and the prosecution has produced nine witnesses but failed to bring on record iota of incriminating material against the accused. Sadaf Naz had pleaded that she was dragged into the “fake and fictitious” case without any reason therefore the case against her should be dismissed.
It’s understood that the case will now be sent to FIA Karachi to complete the remaining investigation after judge Ghulam Murtaza Virk’s ruling.
Zahoor’s lawyer Rana Rehan pointed out that this matter was settled a long time ago in 2013 by the Supreme Court when Sophia Mirza accepted a payment of one million from her former husband and settled the case. He pointed to the ruling made by a three member bench of the Supreme Court whereby the matter between Khushbakht Mirza and Umar Farooq was finally disposed off with the observations that a sum of Rs. 10,00,000 has been paid to Khushbakht Mirza. The lawyer further added that initiation of criminal proceedings on a matter already settled by the Supreme Court of Pakistan shows the malafide of the Complainant Khushbakht Mirza.
In past years, Sophia Mirza had falsely accused that Umar Farooq Zahoor was involved in gold smuggling, illegally acquired billions of rupees in fraud from various countries, defamed Pakistan, and was defrauding businesses in Pakistan. Shahzad Akbar took the matter to the Cabinet of former PM Imran Khan and received approval for investigation but the cabinet was not told that the complainant was actually the former wife of Mr Zahoor. The cabinet was also not informed that the Supreme Court of Pakistan and a Shariah Court of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had already settled the matter of custody of the couple’s daughters.
Immediately after the federal cabinet approved the summary, FIA Lahore Chief Dr Rizwan started action against Zahoor: his name was placed on the Exit Control List (ECL) and non-bailable warrants in one of the first information reports (FIRs) were obtained from court without fulfilling the legal requirements, and on the basis of said non-bailable warrants, his passport and CNIC were blacklisted and red notices were issued through the Interpol by National Crime Bureau (NCB) Pakistan for arresting Zahoor.
Pakistan govt also contacted the Dubai authorities seeking action against Zahoor and in the process the UAE govt cooperated with Pakistan and Interpol placed the names of Zahoor, Zubair and Sadaf on the lists of wanted people by Pakistan.
Since then, the Interpol has dropped the name of Zahoor from its database and fake cases registered in Pakistan have also been closed after the FIA Inquiry found no evidence in the allegations made by Sophia Mirza.
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Umar Farooq Zahoor’s name surfaced a few weeks ago on Pakistan’s national scene when it emerged that he was the owner of the rare Graff watch that former Prime Minister Imran Khan sold in the open market after receiving it from Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Suleman. Mr Zahoor showed the rare watch on television and also produced evidence that the watch was the same that the former Pakistan premier sold. He has said that the watch was sold to him by Farah Gogi, the confidante and close friend of former First Lady Bushra Begum.
Umar Farooq says Farah was introduced to him first by Shahzad Akbar in January 2020 and got them to meet. He has alleged that later on Shahzad Akbar tried to blackmail him to agree to the demands of Sophia Mirza and when he refused then fake cases were registered against him by the FIA to hound him internationally.
Both Shahzad Akbar and Sophia Mirza have accepted that cases against Mr Zahoor were registered during PTI govt but they have denied other allegations.
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