The top anti-graft watchdog initiated inquiry against Siddiqui earlier in March this year.
PHOTO: EXPRESS
LAHORE: Ambassador of Pakistan to the United States, Ali Jehangir Siddiqui, on Friday skipped appearing before a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) investigation team in Lahore.
NAB had summoned him on Oct 19 in two cases of corruption.
The first case pertains to Azgard Nine Ltd scam amounting to over 10 billion rupees whereas the second one is regarding the payment of 150 million rupees to a senior bureaucrat.
The top anti-graft watchdog initiated inquiry against Siddiqui earlier in March this year. He was summoned in relation to the case earlier also.
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In a notice, NAB accused him of “siphoning off funds amounting to €23.758 million in 2008 for the purchase of an Italian company, Monte Bello SRL using a foreign company named Fairytal SRL Sweden which resulted in a loss to the company and shareholders.”
It also accused Siddiqui of selling shares of Agritech Ltd to different financial and government institutions through Azgard Nine at a higher price than the market to settle the defaulted loans of his company which resulted in an approximate loss of Rs40 billion to the institutions.
Investigations revealed that the shares were sold at a rate of Rs35 per share while their actual price was Rs11 per share.
“Siddiqui was handed over a questionnaire by a combined investigations team (CIT) but he failed to submit satisfactory answers”, a source said.
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