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KARACHI: A banking court exonerated PPP leader Faryal Talpur and 13 others in one of the fake bank accounts cases after the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) gave them a clean chit in its final report citing lack of evidence.
President Asif Ali Zardari, Ms Talpur and others were booked in cases pertaining to the alleged opening of fake bank accounts and using them for illicit transactions amounting to billions of rupees.
In 2018, a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) formed by the Supreme Court had identified at least 29 bank accounts as fake and claimed in its report that those had been used for laundering Rs42bn.
The apex court had in January 2019, referred the JIT report and evidence collected by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for further investigation. However, later the cases were transferred to the banking court in Karachi for further proceedings.
After hearing the FIA’s investigating officer and the state prosecutor, judge Javed Ahmed Keeior of a Special Court (Offences in Banks) accepted the final charge-sheet, in which 14 individuals, including Ms Talpur, were placed in Column Two due to lack of evidence, and ordered their release.
President Zardari, Anwar Majid, Zain Malik, Hussain Lawai and others have been named as accused in the final investigation report. However, at a previous hearing, President Zardari had claimed presidential immunity under Article 248 of the constitution before the court and asked it to stop the criminal proceeding against him in the present case.
The court order said that as per the investigation officer (IO) accused Bilal Shaikh and Iqbal Arian had passed away during the proceedings leading to closure of their cases.
It further noted that Ms Talpur’s name initially mentioned as an accused in interim charge-sheet, but upon her request a detailed review of her role in the case was conducted.
She provided documents about the sale of sugarcane grown on her family farms claiming that Rs30 million attributed to her was a legitimate business transaction with the Omni Group sugar mills, it added.
This assertion has been corroborated by the NAB’s investigation report, which acknowledges her claim under the heading “Zardari Group Pvt. Ltd” and the IO confirmed that no incriminating evidence was found against Ms Talpur and her plea appeared credible based on supporting documents and testimonies, the order said.
“The final charge-sheet reflects a thorough investigation conducted across multiple forums, the reasons provided for not sending 14 individual for trial, including their status as approver, involvement in separate inquiries, or absence of incriminating evidence, are well-founded and substantiated”, it concluded.
Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2025
