FIA arrests BOL TV CEO Shoaib Shaikh from Islamabad

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested Axact and BOL TV CEO Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh on Thursday from the Islamabad airport on charges of bribing a former sessions judge for his acquittal in the fake degrees case.

Shoaib Shaikh was arrested shortly after he landed in Islamabad on a flight from Karachi.

The BOL TV chief executive is charged with bribing Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Pervez-ul-Qadir Memon to get a favourable verdict in the Axact fake degrees case.

In 2017, the ADSJ had admitted before the Islamabad High Court that he had received Rs5 million to acquit the Axact CEO.

Also read: IHC reserves verdict on judge’s corruption in Axact case

The IHC had terminated Memon from service after he confessed to receiving the illegal gratification to acquit Shaikh. The court had directed the FIA to probe the person who bribed Memon.

The FIA has summoned Shoaib Shaikh multiple times in their probe into the bribery case since then.

FIA officials told The Express Tribune that an enquiry into the matter was registered at the agency's Anti-Corruption Circle in Islamabad following receipt of a reference from the IHC in February 2018.

They added that a First Information Report (FIR) – a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune – was filed against Shaikh for “being a beneficiary of the said transaction [giving Rs 5m in bribe] under u/s 161, 165-1, 109 PPC and 5(2) PCA 1947”.

The FIA had previously arrested the Axact CEO in 2015 after investigators found hundreds of thousands of forged degrees and students ID cards from a secret office of the company in Karachi.

Read more: ‘Fake degree empire’ collapses, Axact CEO nailed

Television footage from the 2015 FIA raid on the Axact offices in Karachi showed piles of degree templates from different universities in rooms at the building.

A New York Times report that revealed that Axact was running a worldwide, multimillion-dollar fake diploma empire from the secret office.

A multi-million money laundering case was also registered against Shaikh and the Axact management, but the chief executive was later acquitted by the now-disgraced judge Pervez-ul-Qadir Memon.