Daily Times

The Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) Corporate Banking Circle on Tuesday lodged a case against 11 persons, including Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan in connection with the foreign funding case.

According to the first information report (FIR), the accused, including Imran Khan, Sardar Azhar Tariq, Saifullah Niazi, Syed Younas, Amir Kiyani, Tariq Sheikh, and Tariq Shafi had violated the Foreign Exchange Act.

The accused were beneficiaries of the party’s account in a private bank account, whose manager had also been nominated in the case, the FIR said.

It further stated that a bank account was created in the name of Naya Pakistan, and the bank manager allowed to operate that illegal account, while $2.1 million were deposited by the Abraaj Group of Companies in it.

The PTI submitted Arif Naqvi’s affidavit to the Election Commission of Pakistan, which was a false one as the Abraaj Group also deposited money in the party’s account, it added.

The FIR said that there were 12 currency transaction reports and suspicious transaction reports that had to be reported by the bank officials to the concerned authorities, but they failed to do so. The FIR alleged the branch’s operations manager had also failed to report these illegal transactions to the concerned authorities.

The FIR came just a day after the Islamabad High Court (IHC) issued a notice to the FIA in the prohibited funding case after PTI asked the court to stop the agency from probing the case. The FIA has time and again summoned PTI leaders for questioning, however, not all of them have shown up.

On October 10, a district court in Lahore sent PTI leader Hamid Zaman on a 14-day judicial remand in the prohibited funding case. The FIA had registered a case against Zaman, a trustee of the Insaf Trust, over prohibited party funding.

On August 22, 2022, the ECP, in a unanimous verdict, announced that the PTI received prohibited funding. The case was earlier referred to as the “foreign funding” case, but later the election commission accepted the PTI’s plea to refer to it as the “prohibited funding” case. The commission found that donations were taken from America, Australia, Canada and the UAE. PTI received funds from 34 individuals and 351 businesses including companies, the ECP verdict stated. Thirteen unknown accounts also came to light, said the commission in the verdict, adding that hiding accounts are a “violation” of Article 17 of the Constitution. The funds were also in violation of Article 6 of the Political Parties Act.