NAB gets Durrani’s custody for 10 more days

An accountability court on Monday extended for a third time the physical remand of the Sindh Assembly speaker, who is currently in the custody of the country’s top anti-graft watchdog.

At the outset of the hearing, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) sought Agha Siraj Khan Durrani’s custody for two more weeks, contending that the suspect needed to be questioned about the properties surfaced during the investigation, but he was not available despite being remanded.

NAB’s prosecutor said the suspect left for the provincial assembly after breakfast every day and returned to his cell after spending the entire day there. He said the suspect was available to the investigators for hardly two hours, adding that so far NAB has found properties and valuables worth Rs360 million that allegedly belong to Durrani.

He said that some of the assets declared by the suspect are worth more than the mentioned value, adding that expensive watches, jewellery, gold and foreign currencies were also found in a bank locker owned by the suspect.

Durrani’s lawyer made the argument that if NAB has not investigated anything yet, it should care about the stage when a suspect should be arrested. He said it seemed that the anti-graft body was only interested in maligning his client by portraying him as a corrupt person in the media even though he could prove all his sources of income.

He said it was a question mark on NAB’s efficiency that it has no proof to support its allegations, adding that his client was being put under pressure through different tactics, including harassment of his family members and a mala fide campaign against him in mainstream and on social media.

He said that NAB had neither responded to the complaint by the defence despite being served with court notice nor had it been able to submit the necessary documents to the court. He added that neither did the memo of the arrest bear the signature of any officer nor did the remand papers carry the name of the investigation officer.

He contended that given the circumstances, his client should be released, and if NAB were to find any incriminating evidence against him, he could be arrested again. He said the arrest and the detention were illegal because they could not stand up to the law.

Directing NAB to sort out the problems highlighted, the judge granted the watchdog the custody of the suspect until March 21, with the order that the IO should to submit a progress report in the next hearing.

Durrani, a leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, was arrested by NAB in Islamabad on February 20. The anti-graft body had told the court that Durrani, in his current capacity as PA speaker and formerly as local government minister, committed offences of corruption and corrupt practices.

According to NAB, the total income declared by the suspect from 1985 to June 2018 was Rs84,426,978 while the declared properties and other assets in his and his family members’ names were valued at Rs269,004,026. “[Durrani] has assets disproportionate to his known sources of income, which attracts offence of corruption and corrupt practices.”