JIT head Wajid Zia summoned in Avenfield refernce

ISLAMABAD: The Accountability Court hearing corruption references against Sharif family on Monday summoned Wajid Zia, head of joint investigation team, with complete record on Feb 22.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) requested the AC to summon the JIT head on the day as the court will record statements of two witnesses via video link.

This would be the first time after the Panama probe that Wajid Zia will be in the courtroom during Nawaz Sharif's presence.

In its supplementary reference filed last month in Avenfield London apartments corruption case, the anti-graft body had listed seven new witnesses, including the JIT head Wajid Zia; Robert W Radley, a forensic expert based in the UK; two officials of the ministry of information; and Akhtar Raja of London-based Quist law firm.

The supplementary reference mentioned ousted Nawaz Sharif, daughter Maryam Nawaz, sons Hussain Nawaz, Hassan Nawaz and son-in-law Captain (retired) Muhammad Safdar as the accused.

Akhtar Raja of Quist law firm, a loss-making law firm in UK, happens to be cousin of Wajid Zia who hired him to work for the JIT in the UK.

Robert W. Radley of Radley Forensic Document Laboratory was hired by the JIT to examine the documents presented by the Sharif family regarding Avenfiled apartments.

Radley had identified that the type of font used in the Trust Deed declarations was ‘Calibri’. However, the font was not commercially available before Jan 31, 2007 and as such, neither of the documents is correctly dated nor appears to have been created at some later point in time.