SHC grant six-day bail to Faryal Talpur

Counsel accuses FIA officers of being partial in probe

LARKANA: The Larkana bench of the Sindh High Court (SHC) granted on Monday a six-day bail to Faryal Talpur in the money-laundering case against a surety of Rs2 million and submission of her passport.

Farooq H Naik, the counsel for both Asif Ali Zardari and Talpur, lashed out at the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for declaring both of them absconders, saying that the move amounted to pre-poll rigging.

He was talking with media persons outside the court building here.

According to the lawyer, Zardari did not exercise an active role in the affairs of the Zardari Group Limited.

“He (Zardari) is not even a director of the group,” he said.



Naik said that the money-laundering case against both Zardari and Talpur was the worst case of political victimisation.

“They just want to defeat Asif Zardari and Faryal Talpur in the upcoming elections. FIA’s Director-General Basheer Memon is a brother of a Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) candidate who is contesting against the PPP.

He also alleged that the investigation team was led by the agency’s Additional Director-General Najaf Mirza, a cousin of Dr Zulfiqar Mirza.

Asif Zardari had filed a suit against Najaf Mirza in 2005. The case is still pending and Najaf Mirza is still on bail.

FIA, he said, had been carrying out the inquiry in the money laundering case since 2015.

He pointed out that a case was filed with FIA’s State Bank Circle on July 6 this year.

The case’s inquiry officer was Muhammad Ali Abro, Naik said, adding that an investigation was conducted on some bank accounts opened and operated by employees of the Summit Bank and Omni group.

As much as Rs3 billion were deposited into these accounts against withdrawals of Rs6.5 billion.

According to allegations, Rs15 million was also deposited into accounts of Zardari Group Limited, owned by Asif Ali Zardari and Faryal Talpur.



He said that the FIA had summoned Faryal Talpur on July 9 after the case was registered.

A notice was sent in accordance with provision 160 of the CRPC, according to which subjects should provide information if they had any.

“We wrote (back) to FIA and assured them of our full support. The FIA responded by telling us that it would send us a fresh notice. But it did not. Instead, it filed a case. On July 12, the Supreme Court took suo motu notice of the case I appeared before the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP). The CJP told me that the court had not asked the authorities to place the names of Asif Zardari and Faryal Talpur on ECL.”

According to him, Asif Zardari and Faryal Talpur had not been nominated among the 10 suspects of the case.

“Everyone knows that Asif Zardari and Faryal Talpur are contesting elections and that they are regularly appearing in courts.

Farooq H Naik believed that Bashir Memon, Najaf Mirza and Muhammad Ali Abro were not impartial and that the caretaker government and the Supreme Court should remove them from the FIA’s probe.

Naik also accused FIA of violating SC orders, saying that the agency’s actions warranted a contempt of court case.

He said that he had requested the court to shift the case to an FIA officer with integrity.

“My clients are going nowhere. They are busy in their election campaigns.”

“We had filed for a 10-day bail, but we have been given only six days,” he said.

The FIA has declared Zadari, Talpur and Omni group’s Anwar Majeed among absconders in the money-laundering case.

Earlier, Naik appeared before the bench of Justice Irshad Shah and Justice Abdul Rasheed Soomro.

He contended that the case was politically motivated as it has been taken up just a few days before the general election.