KARACHI: A banking court remanded on Tuesday two detained businessmen — Anwar Majeed and his son Abdul Ghani Majeed — to prison in an alleged money laundering case.

Anwar Majeed, who is a close aide to former president of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari, and his son have been arrested and booked by the Federal Investigation Agency in a case pertaining to alleged money laundering of Rs4.14 billion through 29 ‘fake’ bank accounts.

On Tuesday, FIA assistant director Siraj Panhwar brought the ailing businessman Anwar Majeed to court in an ambulance and produced him along with Abdul Ghani before the trial court after their physical remand granted previously ended.

The investigating officer informed that the custody of the detained suspects was no more required by the FIA and pleaded to remand them to judicial custody.

Judge Tariq Mehmood Khoso sent both the suspects to prison on judicial remand till September 4 and directed the IO to submit a report on medical examination of the ailing suspect on the next date.

In July, the FIA detained former chairman of the Pakistan Stock Exchange Hussain Lawai and banker Taha Raza and booked them for allegedly facilitating the opening of the 29 ‘fake’ accounts through which suspicious transactions were made to different companies, including M/s Zardari Group.

It claimed that 29 ‘fake’ accounts in Summit Bank, Sindh Bank and United Bank Limited, were allegedly used for making suspicious transactions to bank accounts of different personalities and entities.

The prosecution said one fake bank account titled M/s A-One International opened in the name of Tariq Sultan at the Summit Bank’s Khayaban-i-Tanzeem branch was allegedly used for money laundering, as the account statement showed that during a short span of 10 months (from March 6, 2014 to Jan 12, 2015) a sum of Rs4.145bn was credited and routed through an account.

The said amount was transferred to 13 different business entities and individuals, including the Zardari Group — a company owned by Mr Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur — which received Rs15 million. The list of the beneficiaries included the names of Mr Zardari, his sister Faryal Talpur, Abdul Ghani Majeed, Shahzad Ali, Zain Malik and 15 others.

A case under sections 419 (punishment for cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), 109 (abatement) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with the Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act-II, 1947 read with sections 3 and 4 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010 was registered at the FIA’s State Bank Circle police station.

In the interim charge sheet filed on July 21, Mr Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur’s names appeared in the list of 20 individuals, who were beneficiaries of such alleged suspicious transactions, and named as absconders by the FIA.

Ms Talpur later obtained interim pre-arrest bail in the case in the sum of Rs2m.

Subsequently, the trial court ordered reissuance of non-bailable warrants for arrest of all absconders, including Asif Zardari. It ordered that all the suspects be arrested and presented before the court by Sept 4.

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2018