Politician's name was removed after his death certificate was submitted in court
The politician's name was removed from the case after his death certificate was submitted in the court. He died at the age of 76 in November this year after battling with blood cancer for some time.
The senior PPP leader also served as federal commerce minister from November 3, 2008, till March 16, 2013, and was later accused of corruption and misusing his authority. In the said case, he was accused of causing a loss worth millions of rupees to the national exchequer in the purchase of a 10-acre land in Korangi for the NICL.
According to the prosecution, the plot was purchased in August 2009, during the tenure of Fahim as trade minister, at the rate of Rs90 million per acre against its market value of Rs20 million. Thus, a loss of Rs700 million was caused to the public money in the purchase of the land, it maintained.
The inquiry of the suspected graft was launched in late 2010 after the then commerce secretary, Zafar Mehmud, had written to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) about the alleged embezzlement of funds in the name of buying property. The case was earlier probed by the FIA and later got transferred to the National Accountability Bureau.
Eleven suspects — Fahim, former commerce secretary Salman Ghani, former NICL chairperson Ayaz Khan Niazi, his subordinates, Amin Qasim Dada, Muhammad Zahoor, Syed Hur Gardezi, Navid Hussain Zaidi, and some others — were indicted in the case in September this year and the prosecution had presented a list of around 70 witnesses against them. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the court also issued non-bailable warrants of arrest against Gardezi and Zaidi for their absence in the past hearings. The rest of the suspects are on bail.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 17th, 2015.
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