ISLAMABAD – An accountability court on Monday extended the physical remand of former president and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari till August 8 in money laundering through fake bank accounts and Park Lane Estate Company cases.
Justice Muhammad Bashir presided over the hearing of the case.
Police ensured strict security arrangements outside the judicial complex and blocked adjoining roads for routine traffic. The litigant public has been denied entry to the complex.
As the hearing resumed, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Rawalpindi prosecutor pleaded with the court to extend Zardari’s physical remand for another 10 days. However, Zardari’s defence counsel Latif Khosa pleaded with the court to extend the remand till August 19 due to Eid-ul-Azha holidays.
After hearing arguments from both sides, Justice Bashir remarked that the remand could only be extended for 15 days at one time. Khosa further presented arguments over newspaper clipping – presented by Zardari in the previous hearing in which the former president had said that Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar had stated that Zardari owns 32 properties – and pleaded with the court to summon Akbar and ask him [about the evidence regarding his claims].
In the previous hearing, the judge had asked Zardari to handover the clipping to his lawyer, and legal action over the matter could only be taken after filing of an application with the court. The court had also extended Talpur’s remand till August 6; however, upon a request by a NAB investigation officer, her physical custody under the NAB was reduced till July 29.
Talpur’s physical remand has been extended for the fourth time.
On July 15, an accountability court in Islamabad extended the physical remand of Zardari for 14 days in the Park Lane case. The National Accountability Bureau had arrested Zardari in the Park Lane case on July 1 while he was already in custody with the bureau’s Rawalpindi directorate in connection with the fake accounts case.
In the Park Lane case, the court directed the NAB to produce him on July 29.
