KARACHI: Customs Court Judge Syed Faiz Rasool Rashdi on Wednesday announced all seven cases’ judgments and has acquitted more than 20 officers of Customs Collectorate Appraisement/customs officials/staff and clearing agents, who were booked in ISAF/ NATO containers scam for losses of billions of rupees to the national exchequer.
During the hearing, the court announced all seven judgments against suspects namely S.M Mehmood Alam, S. Irfan Haider Rizvi, Jamshed Ali, Fareh Shoukat, Shoukat Hussain, Muhammad Yasin, Muhammad Irfan, Muhfooz Ali Khan, Wasif Shah, Sardar Amin Farooqui, Noor Akbar Mahar, Muhammad Abbas Khan, Javaid Jaffer, Syed Asim Raza, Muhammad Rafiq, Shahid Rauf, Syed Arshad Ali, A. Aziz Umrani, Saeed Babar, Munir Ahmed Brohi and others.
According to the prosecution, during the investigation of the ISAF/ NATO containers scam being conducted by the probe committee, FBR, pursuant to the directions of the Supreme Court, initial investigation was conducted which transpired that Afghan Transit Trade consignments were got cleared by clearing agent as per notified procedure. The consignments were cleared from MCC Appraisement. During the investigation, it was revealed that all consignments were first cleared in the garb of Afghan Transit Trade and then were smuggled and disposed of in side Pakistan, causing colossal loss of revenue to the state exchequer.
Court observed in its judgments that “from evidence brought on record it is clear that complainant had no personal knowledge about commission of the offense by the accused persons nominated in this case and he simply signed the draft copy of FIR received from probe committee of FBR office and lodged the FIR on the instruction of the probe committee. The evidence of complainant is of totally no use the prosecution as the witness has himself no knowledge of the crime allegedly committed by the accused persons.
It is significant to note that only NLC was responsible to transport the consignments to Afghanistan but from the record it appear that they failed to perform their duty and no investigation was conducted from the NLC officials who were responsible for transportation of the consignments to Afghanistan.
Even the drivers of the vehicles engaged in transportation who played key role in the alleged crime were not nominated as an accused in this case either by the probe committee or by the complainant. Investigation officer even failed to collect the import documents particularly GD which could show the consignments were imported by Afghan importers. In absence of the GD the charge cannot be proved against any of the accused who are customs officials/staff and clearing agents. There is absolutely no evidence against the accused persons present in court, therefore, prosecution miserably failed to prove its case against them.
