KARACHI: A banking court on Friday granted pre-arrest bail to former president and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari in fake bank accounts case.
Zardari, one of the suspects in money laundering through fake bank accounts case, appeared before a banking court here along with his legal counsel Farooq Naik.
On August 17, the banking court had issued non-bailable arrest warrants of the former president and other suspects in the ongoing probe. Nevertheless, on August 18, PPP co-chairman was granted a protective bail from the Islamabad High Court with additional directives to appear before the relevant court before September 3.
Asif Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur had appeared before the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) team in Islamabad, on August 28, in fake accounts case and faced grilling from the investigators for around 38 minutes.
The FIA officials handed over a questionnaire to the sibling duo after the questioning.
The lawyer of the former president, however, denied the reports of questioning to his client and handing him over a questionnaire.
Zardari and Ms Talpur appeared before the FIA after fourth summon in a case pertaining to fake bank accounts. They had not appeared before the FIA despite three previous summons.
Zardari and his sister were among over a dozen suspects declared absconders in the money-laundering scam.
In the FIA list, Anwar Majeed and his son’s names appeared on top of the list while those of Zardari and Talpur were on the 19th and 20th number, respectively.
According to the FIR registered by FIA, transactions of billions of rupees were made into suspicious accounts, including the one owned by the PPP leaders, the Zardari Group, which is accused of receiving Rs 15 million of the laundered money.
In December 2016, the Pakistan Rangers conducted raids at the Karachi office of the Omni Group of Companies and the residence of its owner Anwar Majeed, a close aid of Zardari, and confiscated record allegedly related with money laundering.
