ISLAMABAD: An accountability court on Thursday returned four fake accounts references to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) including one against former president Asif Ali Zardari.Accountability Judge Muhammad Bashir announced the verdict regarding returning of the references. Zardari’s lawyer Farooq H Naek and the NAB prosecutor appeared before the court. Naek pleaded that these references did not fall in the jurisdiction of accountability courts after amendments to the NAB Ordinance and it could not continue the trial in these cases. He prayed to the court to return the references to the anti-graft watchdog.
The court returned the reference against Asif Ali Zardari, his sister Faryarl Talpur and Hussain Lawai with regard to mega money laundering. The court also returned a reference against Manzoor Qadir and others pertaining to illegally plot allotments and a Sindh Bank reference against Bilal Sheikh and others. Similarly, the accountability court returned the Pink Residency reference to the anti-corruption watchdog while declaring it non-maintainable.