Pindi NAB summons Zardari, Bilawal on 20th

ISLAMABAD/KARACHI: The Combined Investigation Team of the National Accountability Bureau Rawalpindi investigating fake bank accounts scam has summoned Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) President Asif Ali Zardari and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on March 20, sources in the NAB confirmed.

The CIT — headed by DG NAB Irfan Mangi — has prepared questionnaires for Zardari and Bilawal with regard to the fake bank accounts case, Park Lane Estate Company Pvt Ltd and Zardari Group.

It will also summon the other accused in fake bank accounts case including Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, Faryal Talpur and others after recording the statements of Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

However, PPP Senator and Bilawal Bhutto’s spokesman Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar said Bilawal Bhutto had not received any NAB notice. He denied the news circulating on the TV channels claiming that Bilawal had received a NAB notice. “If we got a notice from the NAB, we will inform the media,” he added. Meanwhile, reacting to the transfer of NAB cases against Asif Ali Zardari from Karachi to Rawalpindi, PPP Secretary Information Dr. Nafisa Shah said it was continuation of a specific mindset that had always opposed the PPP and its ideology. “This act is adding fuel to the already burning fire of political revenge,” she commented.

Nafisa said it was baffling how a case belonging to one province was being transferred to another. “The letter penned by late Brigadier (R) Asad Munir and addressed to the chief justice is proof of the NAB's humiliating and degrading conduct,” she said. She said the NAB had played with people's dignity more than the number of cases it had solved.

INP adds: In a related development, a banking court in Karachi Friday transferred the money laundering case against former president and PPPP President Asif Ali Zardari, his sister Faryal Talpur and others to Rawalpindi, granting an earlier request by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

The court also withdrew the interim pre-arrest bail granted to Zardari, his sister Faryal Talpur and other suspects. The banking court had reserved its verdict earlier this month after the NAB furnished a request for transfer of the case to an accountability court. Zardari and Talpur did not attend the case hearing on Friday; however, Hussain Lawai, Abdul Ghani Majeed and others named in the case were present.