Let the trial begin: Dr Asim indicted over Rs462b graft

Accountability court to start testifying prosecution witnesses on May 14

KARACHI:

An accountability court has indicted former petroleum minister Dr Asim Hussain for embezzling Rs462 billion from the national coffers through money laundering and corruption.

Dr Asim, a close confidante of former president Asif Zardari, has pleaded not guilty.

On Friday, Accountability Court-IV Judge Saad Qureshi formally framed charges against Dr Asim and three other co-accused.

Karachi Development Authority’s ex-director Athar Hassan, former petroleum secretary Ejaz Chaudhry and Karachi Dock Labour Board’s (KDLB) former chief Muhammad Safdar have already obtained pre-arrest bails.

Two more suspects are absconding in the case. They are Abdul Hameed, finance adviser of Ziauddin Group, and Masood Haider, a former director of KDA’s Land Department.

Dr Asim has been charged with misusing his authority for illegal gains, kickbacks, money laundering, getting plots allotted fraudulently and for taking over state-owned plots for the expansion of his family-owned hospitals.

The former minister was presented before the judge, who read the charges against them.

Pleading his innocence, Dr Asim conveyed his decision to contest the case, upon which the court issued notices to the prosecution witnesses to testify on May 14.

An inquiry initiated by the National Accountability Bureau in the light of Dr Asim’s disclosures in the custody of paramilitary Rangers had found the minister involved in massive misappropriation of funds and land records.

The investigators accused Zardari’s aide of misusing the Dr Ziauddin Trust as a vehicle for money laundering in connivance with absconding accused Abdul Hameed, who facilitated and abetted in illegal conversion, layering, placement and integration of illegal money and converting it into assets abroad and in Pakistan.

The judge ruled the former minister was allotted three amenity plots in Clifton and one plot for a cancer hospital in North Nazimabad in Karachi. Seven other plots, measuring in total over 84 acres, were also allotted to him for setting up a medical university and for educational and industrial purposes.

Dr Asim, in connivance with co-accused Safdar, is also accused of using for personal gains the KDLB hospital, as about 73 per cent of patients there were referred to the Ziauddin Hospital.

Safdar has also been charged with awarding the contract for running the hospital to Dr Asim in 1996 and its subsequent extensions through agreements till his retirement. The latter paid an average rent of Rs700,000 per month and recovered about Rs800,000 to Rs900,000 per month through billing.

The court said the bank accounts of Dr Asim, his family members as well as Abdul Hameed showed abnormal transactions indicative of money laundering. The ex-minister has been charged for money laundering under sections 3 and 4 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2010.

The NAB inquiry also accused Dr Asim of exploiting his office as the petroleum minister as well as the constitutional and legal forums like the cabinet and the Economic Coordination Council (ECC).

Between 2010 and 2013, the ECC had tasked Dr Asim to fairly prioritise gas needs of various sectors, including the lucrative fertiliser industry.

The suspect was accused of causing unprecedented gas curtailment while misleading the ECC and other forums resulting in abrupt shortage of urea. The urea price consequently increased from Rs850 per bag to Rs1,830.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2016.