Weapons procurement scam: NAB directed to submit plea bargain to accountability court

Accused Raza Ali Khan earlier agreed to pay Rs200 million for his release .

PESHAWAR:

The Peshawar High Court directed the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Tuesday to submit the plea bargain in the case of Raza Ali Khan in an accountability court within a week.

He is a distant relative of former chief minister Amir Haider Hoti and is one of the people accused of embezzling Rs2.03 billion while procuring weapons for the K-P police. The division bench of Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Muhammad Daud Khan also ordered the accountability court to decide the plea bargain case within ten days.



Raza Ali has been in Peshawar Central Prison for the last year and was arrested in a multi-billion rupee weapons procurement scam for the K-P police department in 2008-10.

Umer Farooq Adam, counsel for the accused, told the court his client handed an application to the NAB chairman through which he offered to pay Rs200 million under a plea bargain. The application was approved, but had not been produced in an accountability court for his release.

Adam said more than half of the agreed amount was paid to NAB, but the bureau still did not produce the plea bargain in court, thus delaying the release of Raza Ali Khan.

Deputy Prosecutor General Muhammad Jamil informed the court that the suspect paid Rs120 million in cash, while a house and property worth Rs130 million were also mortgaged. The cheque was given in November while the mortgage deed was done in December.

The court then ordered NAB to produce the plea bargain of the accused in an accountability court within a week and ordered that the case be decided within 10 days. PHC subsequently disposed of the case.

Raza Ali was arrested on January 6, 2014 by NAB in the weapons scam and sent to Peshawar Central Prison on the 31st of the same month.

Former IGP Malik Naveed and Amir Ghazan Hoti, the brother of former chief minister Amir Haider Hoti, were also arrested in the case. Both men are behind bars.

NAB says the contract was worth Rs7 billion of which Rs2.03 billion was embezzled.

Pre-arrest bail extended

The same bench also extended the interim pre-arrest bail of former Peshawar Development Authority DG Qazi Laiq till January 29. NAB named him in a case involving the illegal lease of five kanals of land adjacent to Iqra University in Hayatabad at a throwaway price. The bureau said the property has been leased out for 33 years.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2015.