Why NAB appealed against Zardari’s acquittal

ISLAMABAD: The festivity and celebrations by former President Asif Ali Zardari and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) over his acquittal by a Rawalpindi accountability court on August 26 in the last corruption reference proved short-lived as the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has filed an appeal against this decision, writes Tariq Butt.

Jubilant Zardari and PPP leaders asserted that it has been established that the cases instituted against him were politically motivated and that he has not committed any corruption. However, the judgment quickly alluded to a quiet deal between the PPP supremo and powers that be as it came after the relief was given to Dr Asim Hussain, supermodel Ayyan Ali and Sharjeel Memon.

Moments after the NAB submitted the appeal in the Lahore High Court (LHC), the PPP took aim at the anti-corruption organization and accused it of being biased against its leaders. Articulating the party line, one angry leader said that when it comes to the PPP, its leaders are arrested by the NAB, their names are placed on the Exit Control List (ECL) and appeals are filed against their acquittals, but no such step is taken against the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

The NAB might not have called the verdict into question in the LHC had it not been under tremendous pressure that came on it for filing of four references against deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his children Maryam, Hussain and Hassan and Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar in an accountability court. Also, immediately after the pronouncement of the judgment in favour of Zardari, it was but natural that the NAB was going to appeal against it because of the overall environment that permeates over the issue of accountability of top politicians with the objective of minus-one formula being forced upon popular political parties.

The NAB was compelled to agitate the ruling in the LHC after the claim that its weak prosecution resulted in Zardari’s exoneration in the reference that saw an unprecedentedly prolonged litigation. He had been charged with having assets beyond known means.

The premise of Judge Khalid Mehmood Ranjha’s quashment order was that the reference was not maintainable as the evidence submitted by the NAB was in the form of photostat copies only, which had no legal value and lacked a legal basis. Had the NAB provided original and genuine documents to back up its allegation, the judgment might have been different.

Under the established law, the evidence and proofs brought before the court have to be impeccable, beyond an iota of doubt and above reproach to enable the judge to convict the accused. If there are any loopholes, their benefit is bound to go to the person arraigned.

If the same benchmark was applied, hardly any reference against the Sharif family will stand the strict legal scrutiny because in these cases reliance is also mainly on unverified, unauthenticated documents, mostly photostat copies.

It is unclear how many more years will be needed before the last reference against Zardari will reach its logical conclusion. The LHC judgment either way will be appealable in the Supreme Court. Nineteen years’ litigation culminated in the quashment order. Such a long period was a dismal reflection on the efficacy and efficiency of the judicial system particularly the accountability courts, which, under the NAB law, are required to decide a case within thirty days. This and other references against Zardari could not be heard for five years from 2008 to 2013 as he, being president of Pakistan during this period, was immune from prosecution.

Now the NAB has argued in its appeal that the most devastating aspect of the case is that the judge, in an unprecedented manner, did not allow the prosecution to bring on record the essential, convincing and reliable documentary evidence obtained from a foreign country in the statement of prosecution witness Rizwan Ahmed. There is a wad of incriminating evidence with the NAB against the accused, it was stressed.

The appeal pleaded that tremendous amount of documentary evidence relating to the properties, bank accounts, other movable and immovable properties acquired by the accused abroad was found, which was in no way proportionate to his declared and known assets and sources of income.

It claimed that by ignoring these documents the judge in fact closed all doors for the prosecution to prove assets beyond resources held by Zardari or his front men abroad. The reference, along with several other similar cases against Zardari, was closed in 2007 under the notorious National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) that Benazir Bhutto had signed with then military dictator Pervez Musharraf as part of a deal. The NRO had granted amnesty to politicians, political workers and bureaucrats.

However, in 2009 the Supreme Court declared the NRO void ab initio and ordered revival of all the closed cases, but by then Zardari had sworn in as the president and had got constitutional immunity from prosecution. After he vacated the office following completion of his five-year term, the reference was activated in the accountability court.