NAB appeal against acquittal dismissed

LAHORE
The Lahore High Court Monday dismissed appeal of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against acquittal of Sohail Zia Butt, a senior member of the Pakistan Muslim League-N. Faisal Raza Bukhari, NAB’s senior prosecutor, appeared before the court and pleaded that Sohail Zia Butt received Rs2 million from Chaudhry Abdul Hameed, accused of cooperative scandal in 1988.
He alleged that Sohail Zia Butt did not get Ahmad Mansion vacated from the illegal occupants. The prosecutor stated that NAB produced Sohail Zia Butt before the accountability court but he was acquitted in the case in 2012. The decision of the accountability court regarding the acquittal of Sohail Zia Butt was wrong and unlawful. After hearing arguments of NAB’s prosecutor, a division bench headed by Justice Muhammad Tariq Abbasi dismissed the appeal against the acquittal of Sohail Zia Butt.
In 2001, an accountability court had convicted Butt in the reference, handing him down three-year term in absentia under section 31-A of the NAB Ordinance, besides declaring him a proclaimed offender. On March 6, 2012, a NAB court acquitted Butt in the reference filed against him by NAB authorities on the complaint of National Industrial Cooperative Finance Corporation (NICFC). According to the reference, the corporation had planned to buy a building, Ahmed Mansion, situated at The Mall that was under illegal occupation. The corporation had an agreement with Butt, hiring his services to get the building vacated from illegal occupants. For the purpose, corporation had paid Rs2 million to Butt and also agreed to pay him 50 percent of the rent of the building to him.