84 cases registered against TDAP, Gilani and others, SHC told

KARACHI: The Federal Investigation Agency has registered 84 cases under the Anti-Money Laundering and Prevention of Corruption Act against the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan, exporters, auditors, bankers and others, including former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in the TDAP scam, an FIA law officer told the Sindh High Court in their comments on Friday. The court was hearing a petition filed by former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani against registration of new cases against him and against alleged harassment by the FIA in the multi-million-rupee Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) corruption scandal.

The senior PPP leader had been booked in over a dozen cases and inquiries pertaining to embezzlement of export development funds and causing a loss to the national exchequer through bogus export claims on freight subsidies.

According to the prosecution, Gilani, late Makhdoom Amin Fahim, some senior officials of the TDAP, some exporters and bank officials embezzled export development funds and caused a loss to the national exchequer through financial irregularities and bogus export claims on freight subsidies approved by the former PPP government for exporters. The petitioner’s counsel, Farooq H Naek, submitted in the petition that the former prime minister was being booked in identical cases in which he was already facing trial. 

He submitted that the FIA authorities were harassing the petitioner in respect of inquiries in fresh cases and prayed the court to restrain the FIA from registering fresh cases against the petitioner without permission of the court and direct the authorities to not to harass the petitioner. 

Filing its comments on the petition, the FIA submitted that sufficient evidence, including documentary evidence, have been collected which proved that all the 35 companies were fake and they claimed/received million of rupees of freight subsidy from the TDAP on the basis of fake documents. 

The FIA submitted that cases have been registered against the owners of these companies and other beneficiaries. Besides, an email has been detected in which Faisal Siddique Khan, an alleged front man of the former prime minister, has forwarded details of account/payments made to Yousuf Raza Gilani as his share of money realized from the TDAP in the form of bogus freight subsidy claims.

It was submitted that the witness/approver in the case, Mohammad Firdous, confessed before a judicial magistrate that he went to the Prime Minister’s House along with Faisal Siddique Khan and met the then prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, and also stated that they handed in Rs5 million to Mohammad Zubair, the then deputy secretary (personnel) at the PM’s Secretariat, as the first installment for getting approval of freight subsidy claims of various fake companies. 

The FIA said that the PM secretariat’s deputy secretary deposited the said amount into Yousuf Raza Gilani’s personal account in a private bank at the F-7 Markaz in Islamabad. The FIA said that the witness had said that Faisal Siddique was getting allocation of funds, approval and disbursement of freight subsidy claims of various fake companies and sharing the amount with the former prime minister.  

At present, the FIA said, former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Mohammad Zubair Ahmed and others have been booked in 26 cases and final charge sheets have been submitted before the special judge of the federal anti-corruption court.

The FIA submitted that it had been investigating TDAP cases strictly in accordance with the law, and no action in violation of the law was taken, and no harassment or intimidation was caused to the petitioner or any other person.  The court was requested to dismiss the petition in limine. 

The court, after taking the comments on record, adjourned the hearing until the last week of June on the request of the petitioner’s counsel who wanted to file a counter affidavit on the petition. It is pertinent to mention that Yousuf Raza Gilani is already on bail in several cases registered under the scam.