Bail plea of Hamza’s ‘frontman’ rejected

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday dismissed bail petition of Shahid Rafiq, an alleged frontman of leader of Opposition in Punjab Assembly Hamza Shahbaz, in a money laundering case.

The suspect’s lawyer contended before the court that his client has been accused of making transactions of millions of rupees into the Sharif family’s accounts from the United Kingdom. The accusations hurled by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) at Shahid Rafiq are fabricated and ill-founded, he claimed, pleading with the judges to order his client’s release on bail. However, the NAB prosecutor, opposing the bail petition, said the suspect was involved in transferring ill-gotten money into the Sharif family’s accounts. He pointed out that he was running a money exchange company under the name of Zarco. Two other facilitators of Sharif family namely Shahid Qayyum and Fazal Dad were assigned the job of proving money to Rafiq who laundered them after converting it into foreign currency.

Headed by Justice Baqar Ali Najafi, a two-judge bench of the high court dismissed the petition after hearing arguments from both prosecution and defence sides. Suspect Mushtaq Chenni, another 'frontman' of Hamza, has turned an approver in the money laundering case.