MNA Ali Musa Gilani. PHOTO: INP/FILE
RAWALPINDI:
A trial court on Friday decided to indict former MNA Ali Musa Gilani and former federal minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin in the ephedrine case.
This was decided by Control of Narcotics Substances (CNS) Judge Arshad Tabassum during the hearing, but the accused persons will be indicted on April 5.
During the course of hearing all the accused persons appeared before the court and the ANF official requested the court to indict them.
The Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) on Friday arrested Tauqeer Ali Khan, alleged frontman for Musa who had been declared an absconder by the same bench. Last year, ANF had issued his arrest warrants for his involvement in the scam. The Islamabad High Court (IHC) had dismissed an intra-court appeal after he requested the warrants be quashed in 2012.
On March 9 the court had summoned Musa , son of former premier Yousuf Raza Gilani, and Makhdoom Shahabuddin on March 22. On the last date of hearing, ANF had submitted a final charge sheet against Shahabuddin, Musa, former principal secretary to the prime minister Khushnood Akhtar Lashari as well as others.
According to the final charge sheet, former health director general Dr Asad Hafiz, former director health Shaikh Ansar, former deputy drug controller Abdul Sattar Sorani, Ansar Farooq, Iftikhar Babar, Anjum Shah and Khan had been declared principal offenders. However former health director general Dr Rasheed Juma and former director Danas Pharmaceutical Rizwan Khan were declared state approvers. In their statements, they had said they participated in the scam under pressure from Musa and Shahabuddin, who were behind manipulating huge quotas of ephedrine for domestic consumption.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 23rd, 2013.
COMMENTS (3)
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When it takes this long to bring clearly guilty people to trial...........for the people to lose faith in the judicial system is not surprising.
Lock them up and throw away the keys
Its mean all top and highly designated people of health ministry who used to make decisions about others are now in troubled and hot waters and unable to explain their role, acts and job descriptions.What a miserable condition of top officers.