ISLAMABAD: The accountability court will record today (Monday) the testimony of five prosecution witnesses against Senator Ishaq Dar, who is facing a corruption reference pertaining to having assets beyond know sources of income.
The testimony will be recorded by accountability court judge Muhammad Bashir in presence of National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) prosecutors and Dar’s lawyers. The NAB’s witnesses who will testify against Dar are: Faisal Shehzad, a bank official, Deputy Secretary Cabinet Division Wasif Hussain, Deputy Director Commerce Qamar Zaman, former National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) Director Qaboos Aziz and National Assembly Director Sherdil Khan. The court is likely to order the attachment of properties of Ahmad Ali Quddusi, a guarantor of Dar, who had furnished a surety bond of Rs 5 million, as he could neither produce Dar before the court nor he submitted Rs 5 milion surety in exchange of his properties’ guarantee. Earlier on Dec 14, when Quddusi did not turn up despite being summoned, the court had directed NAB to submit details of properties being owned by him so that those could be attached. If attached, the properties will become part of the case record and remain in the court custody till final disposal of the case. Earlier on Dec 11, Dar was declared a proclaimed offender for his continued absence from the trial. On last hearing, a prosecution witness Muhammad Azeem, an employee of a private bank in Lahore, submitted details of Dar and his family’s bank accounts.
He also submitted the record of a bank locker operated in the name of Dar and his wife. Besides, he submitted the details of Hajvery Holdings, a private company owned by Dar. In his statement, the witness stated that Dar had been operating his first account from 2001 to 2012, second from Aug 2012 to Dec 2016 and third from Jan 2017 to Aug 2017. He also presented a statement having details of Dar’s income from 2005 to 2017. NAB prosecutor had apprised the court that he wanted to produce nine witnesses on the next hearing. The court, however, had directed him to produce five witnesses on the next hearing and had issued summons to them. A graft reference was filed against Ishaq Dar on the Supreme Court’s July 28, 2017, orders in the Panama Papers case. He is accused of having assets beyond his known sources of income. NAB has submitted a list of 28 witnesses in the court against Dar, out of which five have recorded their statements so far.
Published in Daily Times, December 18th 2017.