Daily Times

Karachi: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday heard Federal Investigation Agency’s appeal against the acquittal of the accused in the Khanani and Kalia money laundering case by a banking court.

A division bench of the court heard the case. During the course of the hearing, FIA provided copy of relevant documents to forex exchange dealer Khanani and Kalia. The documents consisted of five thousands pages.

The court re-issued notices to other accused in the case to appear before the court.

FIA submitted in the court that the Agency has decided to launch fresh probe into Khanani and Kalia money laundering case.

It added that some FIA officers had to be included in the fresh investigation since some FIA officers deliberately hid evidences against Khanani and Kalia leading to acquittal of the accused in the case. The court was informed that action was being taken against those officers who concealed facts in the matter.

The Agency further submitted that the trial court also ignored important evidences in acquitting the accused.

The court was told that following the acquittal from the trial court all the accused had fled. The accused had got incorrect permanent residence addresses registered due to which the Agency was facing problem in tracing them but it has traced two accused, Atif and Saeed Masood.

Shaukt Hayat Advocate submitted Vakalat Nama on behalf of Munaf Kalia and the court adjourned hearing of the case for indefinite period.

It is to be mentioned here that special banking court in 2001 had exonerated four foreign exchange dealers and as many officials of different banks from all charges of falsification of bank accounts for the purpose of money laundering.

The four forex dealers – Abdul Munaf Kalia, his brother Hanif Kalia, and Javed Khanani- had been accused of opening bogus bank accounts with the help of Masood Abbas, Syed Wajahat Ali, Tasleem Ahmed and Arif-ur-Rehman of private banks, respectively, and allegedly using them for unlawful transfer of billions of dollars abroad.

Judge Mir Mohammad Sheikh of the Special Banking Court had acquitted them.

The court had ruled that the prosecution failed to place sufficient evidence in court in order to prove its case against the accused persons beyond a shadow of a doubt.

The Federal Investigation Agency had arrested Mohammad Javed Khanani and Abdul Munaf Kalia, the directors of the Khanani and Kalia International, on the night of Nov 7th, 2008 in Karachi and Lahore, respectively. Hanif S. Kalia, the chairman of the Kalia Group, was arrested from Clifton Karachi on Nov 28 the same year.

Later, Atif Polani was also apprehended at Karachi airport following his arrival from Dubai. The four bank officials were arrested in December 2008.

A case (FIR 76/08) was registered against the accused under Sections 406 (punishment for criminal breach of trust), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker merchant or agent), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), 477-A (falsification of accounts) and 109 (abetment) of the Pakistan Penal Code, Sections 5/8 (restriction on payments/restriction on import and export of certain currency and bullion), 22/23 (false statements/penalty and procedure) of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947 read with Section 7 (electronic fraud), 8 (electronic forgery) & 20 (other offences) of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Ordinance at the FIA crime circle, Karachi.

The special banking court had tried the accused in the scheduled offences under the Pakistan Penal Code and exonerated them from all the charges.

Published in Daily Times, August 24^th 2017.