The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Saturday declared former president Asif Ali Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur absconders in a money laundering case.
A two-member bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar had taken suo motu notice into FIA’s probe of a Rs 35 billion money laundering scandal. The duo was declared absconder in the case, which also nominates many others including Zardari’s close aide and Pakistan Stock Exchange sacked chairman Hussain Lawai.
The FIA submitted challan of the case against Hussain Lawai and other suspects in the court on Saturday. Besides PPP supremo and his sister, 18 others including chairman of a private bank and Anwar Majid and his son have also been declared absconder in the challan.
The FIA inquiry started when the financial monitoring unit of the State Bank of Pakistan generated a ‘suspicious transaction report’ in January this year regarding 10 bank accounts. Over 20 ‘benami’ accounts at a private bank were reportedly opened in 2013, 2014 and 2015 from where transactions worth billions of rupees were made. The amount, according to the FIA sources, is black money gathered from various kickbacks, commissions and bribes. The bank authorities never reported such a huge transactions to the authorities concerned, including the FIA.
Zardari has already denied any involvement in the scam. In an interview earlier this month, he said that he will face the bogus cases like he did in the past, adding that he was sent a notice of Rs 150 million rather than the propagated amount of Rs 35 billion.
Published in Daily Times, July 22nd 2018.
