PTI denies receiving funds from ‘prohibited sources’

Says those who gave the money were Pakistanis living abroad

ISLAMABAD:

The PTI has denied receiving funds from “prohibited sources” from abroad and maintained that the party only collected money from Pakistanis.

A three-member bench of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) led by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja heard the PTI foreign funding case on Tuesday.

During the hearing, PTI counsel Anwar Mansoor argued that Foreign Agents Registration Act (Fara) had been formulated for US law. The US law cannot apply in Pakistan, he said, adding that only the multinational companies fell within the ambit of foreign funding. “No funding from prohibited sources was received from the US.”

Mansoor noted that the scrutiny committee of the ECP had rejected both the party’s and petitioner Akbar S Babar’s documents. He said the committee did not give any reason for rejecting his documents, adding that the body could not refuse to entertain the party’s documents.

“Who conducted forensics in the scrutiny committee?” he asked, pointing out that an expert was required for the purpose. The PTI counsel further said that the scrutiny panel had not submitted the forensic report whereas the one presented before the ECP was an auditor’s one.

He said both Voten Cricket Club and Bristol companies in Dubai were not multinational but local organisations. The owner of Voten Cricket Club, Arif Naqvi, had said that it was a sole ownership local company, the PTI counsel said.

The ECP adjourned the hearing of the case till Wednesday (today). The foreign funding case was first filed in November 2014 by Babar accusing the PTI and its leadership of corruption and receiving illegal funding.