Court reserves verdict on Talpur’s plea seeking restoration of bank accounts

Faryal Talpur's personal bank accounts were frozen as part of the fake accounts investigation

An accountability court in Islamabad on Tuesday reserved its decision on a plea seeking restoration of bank accounts of Pakistan Peoples Party lawmaker Faryal Talpur.

The court will now announce its verdict on March 20.

Authorities froze Talpur’s bank accounts in the fake bank accounts case that involves alleged money laundering of billions through 29 accounts, which were found opened in three banks — Summit Bank, Sindh Bank and United Bank Ltd.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had named Zardari, Talpur, Omni Group chairman Anwar Majeed, his sons and over 10 others as suspects in an interim charge sheet filed in a banking court in August 2018.

The case was transferred to Islamabad after a Karachi banking court accepted the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) transfer request filed following the Supreme Court judgment forwarding the joint investigation team (JIT) report to the bureau with directions to investigate and file references.



Today’s hearing

Stressing upon Talpur’s knowledge of illegal transactions, the anti-graft watchdog's counsel said the PPP leader's plea is non-maintainable and added that the accounts were frozen as per law.

However, Talpur’s counsel, Farooq H Naek, maintained that the bureau had admitted to freezing the accounts before the inquiry was finalised. “NAB has accepted that the case initially fell under Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) domain,” he explained. “Freezing accounts before an inquiry violates the law.”

Naek further pointed out that the bank account was of personal use and not ‘benami’. He said the counsel was not seeking to unfreeze Zardari Group’s bank accounts and added that those accounts were not even frozen.

“Not even a penny in her personal bank account was transferred from a fake account,” said Naek.