KARACHI – A banking court on Friday extended the interim pre-arrest bail for Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur till January 7 in a money laundering case.
A large number of PPP workers and senior party leaders, including Khursheed Shah and Rehman Malik, gathered outside the court premises as the former president and his sister appeared before the court today.
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) is investigating 32 people in relation to money laundering from fictitious accounts, including Zardari and Talpur. Zardari’s close aide Hussain Lawai was arrested in July in connection with the probe.
The former president’s other close aide and Omni Group chairman Anwar Majeed a close aide and Omni Group chairman and his son, Abdul Ghani, were arrested by FIA in August.
Over 20 ‘benami’ accounts at some private banks were opened in 2013, 2014 and 2015 from where transactions worth billions of rupees were made.
The amount, according to FIA sources, is said to be black money gathered from various kickbacks, commissions and bribes.
Earlier this week, the Joint Investigation Team that has been investigating the fake accounts recommended a legal course against some 415 key individuals and around 172 entities allegedly involved in transactions of approximately Rs220 billion through 104 fake accounts.
While investigating these fake accounts, the JIT report also revealed a domestic worker of Zardari, with an estimated fortune of around Rs8.1 billion stashed into one of his fake accounts. Mushtaq Ahmed, 37, who once served as one of personal staff members of Zardari accumulated the wealth with Zain Malik through a joint fake account maintained in a private bank in Karachi during 2014-15, the report stated.
https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/pakistan/pti-files-disqualification-reference-against-asif-zardari-for-concealing-offshore-property/
Meanwhile, on Thursday, the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) filed a disqualification reference with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) against Zardari for hiding property in the United States.
The provincial election commissioner, however, maintained that only ECP Islamabad could take an action over it.
