KARACHI: The president of the Pakistan Peoples Party and parliamentarian Asif Ali Zardari, along with his sister Faryal Talpur, have been exempted from attending in a case involving fictitious bank accounts by a banking court.
On behalf of his customers, senior attorney Farooq H. Naik filed motions with the court on Monday, arguing that Mr. Zardari failed to attend because of his political obligations in Islamabad.
The attorney for Ms. Talpur told the jury that she was ill.
The case was postponed to April 22 and they were given a one-day exemption from appearing in court.
Cases against Mr. Zardari, Ms. Talpur, and other individuals concern the purported creation of fraudulent bank accounts and their subsequent use for money laundering totaling billions of rupees.
At least 29 bank accounts were found to be fraudulent in 2018 by a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) established by the Supreme Court. The JIT’s report stated that the bank accounts had been used to launder Rs 42 billion.
The JIT report and the gathered evidence were submitted by the supreme court to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in January 2019 for additional inquiry. Subsequently, though, the cases were moved to Karachi’s financial court for additional procedures.
SOURCE: DAWN NEWS
