NAB court remands two ex-military officials in DHA scam for six days

ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Court on Friday remanded two ex-military officials and a civilian for six days in DHA Islamabad Farmhouse Project scam amounting to Rs1.8 billion.

Accused Brig (R) Javed Iqbal was ex-administrator of DHA while Col (R) Sabahat Qadeer Butt was ex-Project Director and Waseem Aslam was the Chief Executive Officer of Elysium Holdings.

During the course of proceedings NAB prosecutor requested for more 14 days physical remand to further investigate the scandal. He apprised the court that Brig (R) Javed Iqbal and Col (R) Sabahat Qadeer Butt were involved in misusing their authority and violating the contract by selling allotment certificates of DHA Islamabad illegally and in violation of agreement between DHA and Elysium Holdings Pakistan Ltd.

The Prosecutor said that the accused issued 5000 kanal land allotment certificates illegally while misusing their authorities. Waseem Aslam who was Chief Executive Officer of Elysium Holdings had been arrested for causing loss to the DHA and illegal sale of non saleable certificates of DHA in violation of contract agreement and without payment to the land owners, he added.

The NAB official said the management of Elysium Holdings in connivance with the ex-management of DHA had caused a huge loss by not completing the project named DHA I Ranches and sold certificates of the project in violation of contract agreement.

Meanwhile Chuadhry Abdul Aziz counsel for Aslam, Syed Muhammad Teyab counsel for Iqbal and former prosecutor NAB Saeedur Rehman counsel for Butt submitted their power of attorneys before the court.

All the three counsels objected the allegations levelled by NAB authorities and requested for not granting more physical remand. They said for the period of nine days physical remand whatsoever accused could cooperate with the authority they did but now neither their clients were employee of DHA nor they had any authority to call any type of record from it.

If NAB wanted to examine any record related to the scam then it should contact DHA instead of asking for more remand to investigate their clients, the counsels added. Chuadhry Abdul Aziz said earlier NAB obtained nine days physical remand on the same grounds which were pleaded in today's hearing and requested to send accused on judicial remand.

After hearing the arguments at length the bench granted six day physical remand of three accused and adjourned the case till then. It is pertinent to mention here that Brig (R) Javed and Sabahat Qadeer Butt were arrested from Rawalpindi while Waseem Aslam was arrested from Lahore by NAB officials.