Daily Times

The attorney general for Pakistan on Saturday informed the Supreme Court (SC) that Interpol had been requested to issue red warrants of former finance minister Ishaq Dar over his persistent failure to appear before court despite repeated summons.

During the hearing of a case against Dar related to accumulating assets beyond known sources of income, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar asked whether passport of the former minister had been cancelled or not. The attorney general said that directives had been issued to seize the property of Ishaq Dar.

The apex court had expressed resentment over Ishaq Dar’s absence from the court despite the last notice. The CJP had directed the interior secretary to take immediate steps to bring Dar back to Pakistan. He had said that Dar remained in contact with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in London but never responded to the court summons.

Dar was indicted in October last year in a graft case in which he is accused of accumulating assets ‘disproportionate to his known sources of income’. The case was filed against him by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in the light of the Supreme Court orders of July 28 that disqualified Nawaz Sharif as prime minister in the Panama Papers scandal.

In its case against Dar, the NAB has alleged that the accused acquired assets and pecuniary interests/resources in his own name and/or in the name of his dependants of an approximate amount of Rs 831.678 million.

Dar is in London since October and has been seeking treatment of an undefined heart complication at a Harley Street hospital.

Published in Daily Times, July 15^th 2018.