Skip to main content

Court rejects Faryal’s plea to unfreeze bank account

ISLAMABAD: An accountability court on Tuesday rejected a petition of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Faryal Talpur seeking to unfreeze her personal bank account, but restored two accounts of her daughters.

Accountability Court-II Judge Azam Khan issued the order on Ms Talpur’s petition challenging the freezing of her account in connection with the fake bank accounts case.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had written a letter to the State Bank of Pakistan after her name surfaced in the fake accounts case. The SBP had directed scheduled banks to freeze her accounts. Subsequently, three accounts — one in her name and two in the name of her daughters — were frozen.

Ms Talpur’s counsel Chaudhry Riaz argued before the court that besides her personal account, NAB had also frozen the accounts of her children who were not facing any charges. He argued that the anti-graft watchdog had frozen the accounts of the Zardari Group of Companies in the fake bank accounts case, but failed to prove any connection of his client’s family accounts with the scam.

The allegations were against the Zardari Group, but NAB had frozen the accounts of Ms Talpur and her children, he added. The counsel requested the court to issue an order for restoring the bank accounts of his client and her children.

Judge restores two accounts of her daughters

According to the prosecution, the banks were asked to freeze Ms Talpur’s accounts in the fake bank accounts case involving alleged money laundering of billions of rupees through 29 accounts opened in Summit Bank, Sindh Bank and United Bank Limited.

The Federal Investigation Agency had named former president Asif Ali Zardari, Ms Talpur, Omni Group chairman Anwar Majeed, his sons and over 10 others as suspects in an interim challan filed in a banking court in August 2018.

The case was transferred to Islamabad for trial after a Karachi banking court accepted NAB’s transfer plea filed after the Supreme Court had referred a joint investigation team’s report on the fake accounts case to the bureau with a directive to investigate the matter and file references.

The NAB prosecutor argued that the PPP leader’s plea was non-maintainable and said the accounts were frozen in accordance with the law.

But Ms Talpur’s counsel maintained that the bureau had admitted to freezing the accounts before the inquiry was finalised.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2020



from The Dawn News - Home https://ift.tt/2wUoKUN
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trump says he urged team to ‘slow’ COVID-19 testing

US President Donald Trump said Saturday he was encouraging health officials in his administration to slow down coronavirus testing, arguing that increased tests lead to more cases being discovered. The president has claimed falsely on several occasions that surges of COVID-19 in several states can be explained by greater numbers of diagnostic tests. At his first rally since the outbreak forced nationwide shutdowns in March, Trump told the crowd in Tulsa, Oklahoma that testing was a “double-edged sword.” The United States — which has more deaths and cases than any other country — has carried out more than 25 million coronavirus tests, placing it outside the top 20 countries in the world, per capita. “Here is the bad part: When you do testing to that extent, you are going to find more people, you will find more cases,” Trump argued. “So I said to my people ‘slow the testing down.’ They test and they test.” It was not clear from Trump’s tone if he was playing to the crowd, who ...
Post a Comment
Read more

IT ministry forms panel to review social media rules

ISLAMABAD: While uproar against the new rules to regulate social media continues from various segments of society, including parliamentarians, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and civil society, the information technology ministry on Friday formed a committee to review the rules. The federal cabinet approved the rules on Feb 11, but later after opposition from various quarters, including companies that manage different social media platforms, the prime minister announced that a fresh consultation process would be launched over the Citizens Protection (Against Online Harm) Rules 2020. The committee formed by the IT ministry is headed by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority Chairman Amir Azeem Bajwa while its members are Eazaz Aslam Dar, additional secretary of IT; Tania Aidrus, member of the Strategic Reforms Imple­mentation Unit, Prime Minister Office; and Dr Arslan Khalid, focal person on digital media at the PM Office. Federal Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen Ma...
Post a Comment
Read more

IS confirms Baghdadi’s death, vows revenge

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.—AP BEIRUT: The Islamic State militant group confirmed the death of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a statement on Thursday and named his replacement as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi. “We mourn you ... commander of the faithful,” said Abu Hamza al-Quraishi — presented as the group’s new spokesman — in an audio statement. Baghdadi, who led IS since 2014 and was the world’s most wanted man, was killed in a US special forces raid in Syria’s province of Idlib on Sunday. The group also confirmed the killing in another raid the following day of the group’s previous spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir. The statement said the group’s legislative and consultative body convened after the 48-year-old Iraqi-born jihadist chief’s death. “The Islamic State shura council convened immediately after confirming the martyrdom of Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the elders of the holy warriors agreed” on a replacement, said the seven-minute message. Little is known abou...
Post a Comment
Read more