An accountability court in Islamabad on Tuesday decided to indict PPP co-chairman and former president Asif Ali Zardari in the Thatta water supply reference on August 4.
The reference is part of the fake accounts and money laundering case filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against the PPP leader.
It pertains to the alleged illegal awarding of contracts to private contractors for the water scheme.
Earlier, Zardari’s lawyer Farooq H Naek sought the dismissal of the Park Lane reference against his client.
He argued that the case was related to two companies including Parthenon Pvt and Park Lane according to NAB documents.
The Park Lane property was mortgaged against the loan taken by Parthenon, he added.
A private bank, he added, had filed a case for recovery of the loan over non-payment.
Naek pleaded that NAB had filed a supplementary reference against Zardari on November 12, 2019. He said the default was committed by Parthenon and not by his client.
He said the registrar of any company would be responsible of default in accordance with the Company Ordinance, 1984.
Zardari's lawyer further said there was no banking complaint in the case. He contended that NAB was not authorised to move a reference for defaulting bank loans and the matter fell under the jurisdiction of the State Bank.
He said the no one had been named as accused from the banks in the NAB reference.
The NAB, he said, had accused Zardari of influencing the bank as the president of Pakistan.
“Zardari was not the director of the Park Lane company in accordance with NAB's own documents when the loan was taken,” he said.
He further argued that the NAB law did not apply in the case.
NAB prosecutor Sardar Muzaffar Abbasi said the whole management of Parthenon belonged to Park Lane, adding that the company did not even have its own office address.
He added that the company had not carried out any work except taking loans, and the money was detected in fake accounts.
“This was a white collar crime,” he added.
Naek said Zardari had resigned from Park Lane as its director in 2009 before taking the oath of the president’s office.
“My client was not a director of Park Lane when Parthenon took the loan.”
(With input from APP)
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