ISLAMABAD – The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has launched an inquiry into the assets of former military dictator General (r) Pervez Musharraf after getting a warrant from Islamabad High Court.
The anti-corruption watchdog will probe the allegations against the former president of owning properties exceeding his salary competence.
NAB had earlier dismissed a complaint sent by Col (r) Inaam ul Rahim that alleged Musharraf of possessing properties that exceed his income’s capacity to afford.
The petition was earlier run in the Islamabad High Court which provided sanction in the matter. The investigations were carried out after the appellant forwarded another letter to NAB.
In his complaint filed some five years ago, the petitioner had asked NAB to hold an inquiry into the allegation that the general in his nomination papers had declared assets which were beyond his known sources of income. The bureau, vide letter dated April 25, 2013, informed the retired colonel that his complaint could not be entertained for want of jurisdiction, because as a member of the armed forces the general was immune from being proceeded against under the NAO.
However, last month, the IHC directed the bureau to proceed against Pervez Musharraf for his alleged corruption while holding the office of president of Pakistan.
In February, a division bench of the IHC comprising Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb issued the landmark judgement on Rahim’s petition, clearing a 19-year-old ambiguity in the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999 due to which NAB had always shown reluctance to proceed against retired army officers despite complaints of mega corruption against them.
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has also revealed that the former military dictator has not even paid his income taxes, according to reports in local media.
Musharraf slipped out of the country in March 2016 after his name was finally removed from the country’s “exit control list” on Thursday after almost three years of being banned from international travel.
The former army chief, who took power in a 1999 coup, is facing charges of treason.
He had been prevented from leaving since April 2013, soon after he returned from self-imposed exile and became embroiled in a series of legal cases, including a historic government-initiated high treason trial.
