In court: SHC grants pre-arrest bail in ambulance case

Ali Hassan Zardari allegedly converted seven ambulances for use as passenger vehicles

HYDERABAD: The Sindh High Court granted on Wednesday pre-arrest bail to Ali Hassan Zardari, who allegedly converted seven foreign-donated ambulances into passenger vehicles in Nawabshah.

Advocate Haq Nawaz Talpur, the petitioner's counsel, told the Hyderabad circuit bench that a National Accountability Bureau (Nab) team had been raiding Zardari's residence in Ghulam Hyder Shah Colony over the past few days. His client, he added, came to know through media reports that the Nab raids were connected to his alleged possession of seven ambulances that were being used as passenger vehicles. Zardari submitted a surety of Rs1 million to the court and pleaded that the Nab should be ordered to stop raiding his residence. The judges ordered the Nab chairperson and director-general, Sindh police IG and Sindh Anti-Corruption chairperson to submit their replies by July 10.

The ambulances were reportedly donated during the flash floods in 2011. Federal information minister Firdous Ashiq Awan is said to have handed them over to the district administration during her week-long stay in Nawabshah in September 2011. The ambulances, after their conversion to passenger vehicles, were plying passengers from Nawabshah to Sehwan in Jamshoro.

The Nab team reportedly impounded the vehicles and also detained three persons, who could not be identified, for interrogation.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 2^nd, 2015.