Shahzad Akbar wants to be heard via video link

LONDON: The former accountability chief under Imran Khan’s PTI govt – Mirza Shahzad Akbar - has alleged the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is barring him from appearing in investigations of several cases against him.

On Thursday afternoon, the former accountability czar addressed media outside Pakistan’s high commission where he went to seek permission to appear before the investigators via video link. He said he came in person to appeal for a video link appearance after offering the same to the NAB in numerous communications and failing to get a positive response.

Akbar said a precedent is available where several people appeared from video link to give evidence in Pakistan. He said: “In the Memogate scandal, Hussain Haqqani and Mansoor Ijaz appeared from London via video link to present their view. I want the same facility.”

When asked by Geo News to comment on how Judge Arshad Malik’s video scandal characters Mian Saleem Raza and Nasir Butt used to request the same facility from London High Commission under the PTI govt but were denied the same right then by the institutions under the PTI control, Akbar said decisions were made elsewhere at that time. Shahzad Akbar said: “I have sympathy for Mian Saleem Raza and Nasir Mahmood. The difference is they didn’t name who was behind the cases against them; I and many others in PTI have named the people behind these cases. Those doing cases against them then are doing it against us now. There is a lesson in it for the politicians to come together and work towards the supremacy of Pakistan’s constitution.”