ISLAMABAD – The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) informed the Supreme Court that five cases are pending with the high courts against Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari.
The anti-graft buster submitted its reply on Wednesday when the apex court’s three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, heard the case related to controversial National Reconciliation Order (NRO), approved by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf.
NAB said trial courts gave clean chit to former president Zardari in five cases by accepting his plea under section 265 CrPC, adding that the bureau now had challenged four rulings in the Islamabad High Court and one verdict in the Lahore High Court Rawalpindi bench.
In its reply, the anti-corruption watchdog informed the court that the Swiss cases, in which Zaradari had been accused of stashing billions of rupees in bank accounts of Switzerland, could not be reopened as the appeals filed by Pakistani government were time-barred.
[The] record reflects that the matter before the Swiss Court could not be reopened as the appeal of the government of Pakistan was barred by time.”
The bureau also said it is investigating the damage incurred to national exchequer owing to the NRO.
On Tuesday, the apex court ordered Zardari, Musharraf and former attorney general Justice (retd) Malik Qayyum to submit the details of their foreign bank accounts.
The NRO was issued by Musharraf, on 5 October 2007, granting amnesty to politicians, political workers and bureaucrats who were accused of corruption, embezzlement, money laundering, murder, and terrorism between 1 January 1986, and 12 October 1999.
It was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Pakistan on 16 December 2009.
