Ephedrine quota case: Three of principal accused granted bail

Former health DG, two pharmaceutical company heads claim transactions were by the book.

RAWALPINDI:

The Lahore High Court here on Tuesday granted post-arrest bail to three of the principal accused in the ephedrine case.

Justice Chaudhry Muhammad Younis and Justice Ali Baqir Najafi of the LHC’s Rawalpindi bench announced their decision — reserved last week — on the bail pleas of former federal health director general (DG) Dr Asad Hafeez, Danas Pharmaceutical chief executive officer (CEO) Ansar Farooq Chaudhry and Berlex Lab CEO Iftikhar Khan Babar.

The high court directed the three to furnish surety bonds worth Rs1 million each to get their release orders.

The owners of the two companies were arrested in April this year after their pre-arrest bail pleas were turned down. Dr Hafeez was arrested by the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) in June.

The CEOs were accused of first obtaining 9,000kg ephedrine export quota for Iraq and Afghanistan but later getting the quota converted to local consumption and finally smuggling the controlled chemical to Iran through Balochistan.

Dr Asad Hafeez was accused of allowing the conversion of the export quota into a local use quota.

In their bail pleas, the owners of the pharmaceutical companies said that they duly obtained the quota, got it converted for local consumption and manufactured various medicines.

They said they had provided records of the medicines manufactured and distributed in different parts of the country in 2010.

They maintained that any alleged wrongdoing can only be investigated by the drug authorities and tried in drug courts.

Dr Hafeez had contended that he duly following the relevant rules and regulations in converting the export quota for local consumption without pressure from any quarters.

The ANF had registered an FIR in October 2011 and started investigation in the alleged illegal allocation of ephedrine quotas.

Citing the statement of former health DG Dr Rasheed Jumma, who became a prosecution witness, the ANF alleged that the ephedrine quota was allocated under pressure from former federal health minister Makhdoom Shahbuddin and Ali Musa Gilani, the son of former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.

The CEO have been charged with smuggling the ephedrine to Iran for as much as Rs7 billion. Ali Musa and Shahabuddin have already obtained pre-arrest bails from the Supreme Court.

The ANF recently arrested Abdul Khaliq from Balochistan for smuggling the ephedrine to Iran and is continuing its investigation.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2012.