Have no foreign property, account, Zardari tells SC

ISLAMABAD: Former president Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday submitted before the Supreme Court that he does not own any property abroad and he doesn’t have any foreign bank account.

The former president submitted an affidavit before the Supreme Court bench hearing a petition relating to the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), passed by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf.

On the last hearing, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar had directed Pervez Musharraf, Asif Ali Zardari and former attorney general Justice (retd) Malik Qayyum to submit details of their foreign bank accounts.

On Tuesday, Zardari submitted an affidavit wherein he submitted that he does not own any property abroad. “Neither I own any moveable or immoveable property nor I have any bank account outside Pakistan as of today,” Asif Ali Zardari submitted in his affidavit.

He said that whatever he stated in his affidavit is true and correct to the best of his knowledge and belief. A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar is resuming hearing today (Wednesday) in the petition filed by one Feroz Shah Gilani, praying to order recovery of ‘huge amounts of public money’ misappropriated and wasted through unlawful means. He has made former presidents Pervez Musharraf, Asif Zardari and former attorney general Malik Qayyum as respondents. The petitioner had contended that Musharraf subverted the Constitution by declaring emergency followed by the promulgation of the NRO, through which criminal and corruption cases against politicians, including Zardari, were ‘arbitrarily withdrawn’.

In his first reply before the apex court, Zardari had submitted that he had no role in the promulgation of the NRO, adding that he was in jail at the time of its promulgation. He had contended that the petition was frivolous and a classic example of a politically-motivated petition in order to malign him so that maximum political damage was caused to the PPP. Hence, he prayed the apex court to dismiss it forthwith.

Similarly, Musharraf in his reply had informed the Supreme Court that the NRO was promulgated without any mala fide or vested interest and all his actions were in accordance with the laws that existed at that time.