Short-lived freedom: Afzal obtains bail, may get arrested in new case

NAB files charges against the main accused in the Haris Steel Mills case.

LAHORE:

Freedom proved short-lived for Sheikh Afzal on Wednesday.

Hours after he obtained bail from the Lahore High Court (LHC) in the Bank of Punjab (BoP) and NIB Bank loan default cases, the National Accountability Bureau charged him with default in another loan case and arrested him again.

The LHC accepted Afzal’s bail application on Tuesday and summoned officials from both NAB and NIB Bank for today’s (Wednesday) hearing. The application, which had been filed by Afzal’s son Haris, maintained that since the Accountability Court had ordered the former’s release after accepting his plea bargain agreement in the BoP loan default case, NAB could not detain him further. The application further mentioned that Afzal had reached a settlement with NIB Bank over a sum of Rs300 million.

Appearing before the court on Wednesday, NIB Bank officials confirmed the settlement had been made. NAB officials, however, told the bench that the bureau’s chairman had taken serious notice of Afzal’s plea bargain and asked NAB’s prosecution wing to review it.

Afzal’s counsel, however, contended that in light of the plea bargain agreement and the settlement with NIB Bank, his client’s detention by NAB was illegal.

Following this, the bench granted bail to Afzal against the furnishing of bail bonds.

After the proceedings, however, NAB charged Afzal over failing to return another loan, this time obtained from Faysal Bank, and made his formal arrest.

Afzal’s son, Haris, and second wife, Khawra Arshad, were arrested on Wednesday as well, sources familiar with developments told The Express Tribune.

NAB arrested Haris on charges of selling the family’s frozen property in Dubai and withdrawing a 52 million Dirham amount from his and Khawra’s accounts from Emirates Bank’s Dubai branch, sources familiar with the development told The Express Tribune. The property, situated in Dubai’s affluent Emirates Hill neighbourhood, had been frozen along with other assets belonging to the accused after they failed to return a loan obtained from BoP.

Afzal’s wife, meanwhile, was arrested by Iranian law enforcement agencies in Kish Island, part of the country’s Hormozgan province. Despite having her name on the Exit Control List (ECL), Khawra had managed to escape from Pakistan and reach the island. She had been wanted in connection with the withdrawal of money from her account in Emirates Bank despite the fact that NAB had frozen her assets. The bureau had sought Interpol’s help in order to arrest her.

Before fleeing to Kish Island, Khawra made an earlier attempt to flee to Dubai on February 8, 2013. While she had managed to obtain a boarding card from immigration staff on that occasion, the attempt was foiled due to the intervention of an intelligence agency. Khawra subsequently fled the scene.

A petition, however, was filed before LHC by Sheikh Afzal in this regard. Afzal blamed Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials for Khawra’s disappearance in his petition and urged the court to recover her.

Earlier, Afzal had attempted a similar move to shift blame onto investigators. During the BoP case hearing on October 22, 2013, Afzal’s counsel claimed NAB and BoP officials had sold the frozen property in Dubai for roughly half its market value. NAB investigators subsequently proved the claim false and revealed Haris Afzal sold the frozen property himself.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th, 2013.