Daily Times

KARACHI: An accountability court has dismissed a miscellaneous applications filed by Pakistan Peoples Party Karachi president Dr Asim Hussain seeking quashment of a corruption case against him.

The accountability court judge rejected the application after hearing arguments from both sides at length and adjourned the hearing of the reference till July 03.

Dr Asim is facing corruption charges for allegedly depriving the public exchequer of Rs 462 million by misusing his authority to get land allotted illegally, encroaching upon the state land for expansion of Dr Ziauddin Hospital, money laundering and receiving kickbacks

The court adjourned the hearing another reference till June 41

In the reference, Dr Asim Hussain has been accused of illegally awarding multi-billion gas processing contracts to Jamshoro Joint Venture Limited and thus embezzling Rs 17 billion.

According to the National Accountability Bureau, the accused allowed the JJVL to process gas at different gas fields without conducting an open auction, signing agreements and memorandums of understanding as required by law, thus causing a loss of Rs 17.4 billion to the national exchequer.

Other accused included SSGC managing director Khalid Rehman and former officials Zuhair Siddiqui, Azeem Iqbal, Shoaib Warsi, Yusuf Jamil Ansari and Malik Usman, OGDCL former managing director Basharat Mirza and official, Zahid Bakhtiar and JJVL chief executive officer, Iqbal Z Ahmed.

The former federal minister is also facing a case pertaining to the charges of harbouring criminals and terrorists by financing and providing medical assistances at his hospitals.

MQM leaders Waseem Akhtar, Rauf Siddiqui, Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) leader Anees Qaimkhani, PPP leader Qadir Patel, Pakistan Pasban leader Usman Moazzam and others are also facing the same charges before an anti-terrorism court.