Money laundering reference: AC extends Zardari’s physical remand by 11 days

ISLAMABAD: An accountability court on Friday extended former president and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari's physical remand by 11 days.

Zardari was presented before accountability court judge Muhammad Arshad upon completion of his physical remand. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had requested for 14-day physical remand extension of the PPP leader.

The court ordered Zardari to be presented before the court on June 26. On June 10, the NAB arrested Zardari from Islamabad after a bench of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) rejected a plea filed by Zardari and his sister, Faryal Talpur, seeking an extension in their interim bail in the fake bank accounts case. The case pertains to transactions worth hundreds of millions of rupees to the two leaders' private companies, allegedly, through fake bank accounts.

The NAB prosecutor informed the accountability court regarding the development in investigation from Zardari. While reading the progress report, the NAB prosecutor revealed that investigation team has found illegal use of President House letter pads and asked Zardari how these letter pads reached to the house of his close aide Abdul Ghani Majeed.

Zardari said that he is not aware of any such thing, adding that he is not aware of wrong use of letter pads. The NAB prosecutor said it seems that Zardari wants to say something before the court. Zardari’s counsel Latif Khosa informed the court that his client just wanted to listen what the NAB had generated against him in the report.

The NAB prosecutor replied that the department had not generated anything itself rather it was appraising the court about the things surfaced during the investigation. He pleaded that the former president had admitted his close terms with a proclaimed offender Nasir Abdullah, however, Zardari did not accept that the said accused had been his front-man.

The NAB requested the court to grant 14-day remand of Zardari for further investigation. Zardari said why not the NAB should obtain a 90-day remand at once. Zardari’s counsel alleged that NAB is doing political engineering for political victimisation, which is not good for democracy.