A capital court on Friday directed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to conduct medical checkup of the Prime Minister’s former media coordinator, extending his physical remand for four more days.
During the hearing, Khurram Rasool alleged that the FIA team had mentally and physically tortured him during the investigation despite the fact that he ‘willingly’ surrendered to the police in a fraud case.
Rasool appeared before the Islamabad District Court judge Shah Rukh Arjumand with his counsel and sought permission to expose the FIA official’s tactics of pressurising him. “I owe Rs120 million in the LPG case but they are demanding Rs630 million,” Rasool alleged, adding, “My property was confiscated by NAB and I am in FIA’s custody, so how can I return the money?”, the accused maintained.
On his request for a medical check-up, the judge asked FIA officials whether they had gotten a pre-arrest medical report of the accused, which the officials denied.
FIA Legal Director Naeem Khalid sought seven days remand for the accused, saying that the FIA is investigating him in two different cases — the LPG fraud case and the sugar quota case.
The court ordered FIA officials to submit record of the cases separately and granted four days physical remand before adjourning the hearing till February 7.
During the last hearing, the FIA officials had informed the court that the accused had received Rs71 million from a man identified as Sohail Rabbani, promising him allocation of a sugar export quota.
He added that the accused had given a cheque for Rs6.5 million to Rabbani, which was dishonoured by a bank.
While submitting documentary evidence to the court, the FIA officials said that the accused had opened a misleadingly company account with the abbreviation of the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP), while Rasool’s company was named True Corporation.
The accused denied the scam and said, “I am ready to accept fault before the media and judiciary if even a single rupee of the complainant is proven to be in my account.”
Published in The Express Tribune, February 4th, 2012.
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