Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has decided to challenge the acquittal of former President and Pakistan People’s Party Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari before the Lahore High Court. Sources in the NAB told Daily Times on Monday that the bureau has decided to file an appeal in the Lahore High Court against the Rawalpindi accountability court’s decision to acquit Zardari in cases related to the illegal accumulation of assets. They said NAB’s prosecution branch is working on drafting the appeal against the acquittal.

On August 26, 2017, the accountability court judge Khalid Mehmood acquitted Zardari in several references involving alleged possession of assets beyond his known sources of income, observing that the NAB reference against him had no legal standing.

The court ruled that the prosecution failed to establish charges levelled against Zardari.

The references were filed against Zardari some 19 years ago during the PML-N’s second term. In the references, Zardari and his slain wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, were accused of acquiring assets through illegal means and beyond their known sources of income. According to Farooq H Naek, counsel for Zardari, the references were filed in 1998 and adjudicated about two decades later. He said that since 1998, four supplementary references were filed and cases heard in Lahore, Attock and Rawalpindi. He said six chairmen of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) retired, six prosecutors general were replaced and several special prosecutors appointed during the proceedings of the references. “A total of 40 witnesses were examined but no one made any direct allegations against Zardari or assigned him a direct role in alleged graft. The witnesses and evidence were shattered during cross-examination before the court,” Naek said, adding that all references were politically motivated.

Published in Daily Times, August 29^th 2017.