KARACHI: Customs Court Judge Syed Faiz Rasool Rashdi on Wednesday acquitted 13 officials of Customs Appraisement and clearing agents, who were booked in ISAF/NATO containers Scam.
During the hearing, the court announced judgment of case no 72/2011 against suspects namely Syed Arshad Ali, son of Syed Shamshad Ali; Mehfooz Ali Khan, son of Masood Ali Khan; Sardar Amin Farooqui, son of Jalil Ahmed; Noor Akbar Mahar, son of Ghulam Akbar Khan; Munir Ahmed Brohi, son of Hassan Khan; A. Aziz Umrani, son of Muhammad Mithal; Muhammad Abbas Khan, son of Noor Ahmed Khan; Fareh Shoukat, son of Shaukat Ahmed; Shoukat Hussain, son of Muhammad Hussain; Muhammad Yasin, son of Gulab Khan; Shahid Rauf, son of Muhammad Yaseen Khan; Saeed Babar, son of Faqee Muhammad and Muhammad Irfan, son of Hafiz Abdul Majeed.
According to the verdict, during the investigation of the ISAF/NATO containers scam conducted by the probe committee of FBR, pursuant to the directions of the Supreme Court, initial investigation were 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 revealed that all consignments were first cleared in the garb of Afghan Transit Trade and then were smuggled and disposed of inside Pakistan, causing colossal loss of revenue to the state exchequer, it added.
The court further observed 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 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 appears 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 was 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”.
