Trial against former LG secretary starts

Ali Lund is accused of corruption

KARACHI: Trial against a former top bureaucrat, Ali Ahmed Lund, has formally been initiated as an accountability court indicted him on Thursday in a corruption case involving more than Rs200 million.

Lund is accused of illegally accumulating moveable and immoveable assets estimated around Rs225 million. According to the prosecution, the suspect made money which is incompatible with his known legitimate source of income during his employment as a government servant from 1984 to 2014. He was commissioned into the civil services' commerce and trade group.

One of his last assignments in the bureaucracy was as a local government secretary of the province. He was, however, sacked from the position in November 2013 following a controversy over the appointments of 12,900 employees in the department he was managing. He had ordered the removal of these employees, saying that their induction since June 2012 was against the rules. On the other hand, the government nullified his action and reinstated the employees.

An inquiry against the former civil servant into the alleged corruption was launched by the National Accountability Bureau in 2014, which later was turned into a reference in December last year. The suspect has kept denying the allegations since the beginning.

When the accountability court III judge, Munawar Sultana, read out the charges to the suspect on Thursday, he pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the case. The court, after completing the procedure, issued notices to the witnesses named in the charge sheet for recording of their testimonies on January 21.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 15^th, 2016.