Assets reference: Missing record ‘not to affect Zardari trial’

NAB prosecutor tells court the bureau has complete copies of the record

RAWALPINDI: Missing record from court will have no effect on the corruption case against ex-president Asif Zardari, as the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has safely kept all the copies.

The anti-graft body informed an accountability court on Thursday that it has maintained complete record of the illegal assets reference against Zardari.





NAB had prepared two files of the assets reference and submitted original record with the trial court and retained a copy of all record, NAB Prosecutor Khalid Ishaq said.

NAB had filed the reference against ex-PM Benazir Bhutto and her spouse Zardari in 2001.

NAB Prosecutor Khalid Ishaq appeared before Accountability Court Judge Khalid Mahmood Ranjah and said the bureau also had the seizure memo that was missing in the record of the court.

The 300-page memo contains information of assets, bank accounts and property of Zardari



The prosecutor argued that the bureau would present the relevant record to substantiate the statements of the prosecution witness in the case.

The court put off the hearing in the case till January 11, as Zardari’s lawyer Farooq H Naek was not available.

The judge ordered the NAB to produce the prosecution witness to record their statements before the court on the next date of hearing.

Media briefing

Talking to media persons after the court proceedings, prosecutor Khalid Ishaq said that missing of seizure memo from court record would make no difference. He said that it was wrong to say that the original record maintained by the NAB had gone missing.

The prosecutor said that NAB had brought all the record of assets of Zardari and other accused through mutual legal assistance from different countries before filing the reference with the accountability court.



Initially, the case was heard by an Ehtasab court in Attock Fort. He said that later an accountability court was established in Rawalpindi for hearing the corruption references against Zardari. He noted that it was possible that the relevant record was lost during shifting of the record from Attock to Rawalpindi.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2016.