ISLAMABAD, Aug 3: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) must decide by Monday whether or not to appeal against last week’s acquittals by a NAB Court in Rawalpindi of the accused in the long-pending SGS and ARY Gold references that brought great relief to the presidential camp.

President Asif Ali Zardari and his assassinated wife, and former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto were among the accused. After almost 13 years of proceedings, the court ruled that the allegations made in the cases lacked evidence.

President Zardari was not cited by name in the acquittals because of the immunity his office enjoys from prosecution.

The office of the Additional Prosecutor General (APG) of NAB Rawalpindi has referred the matter of appeal to the bureau.

Officials in NAB say that the APG office sent the judgments of Accountability Judge Mian Altaf Hussain Mahar on both the references to the NAB Headquarters on Tuesday.

According to these officials, NAB authorities can file an appeal in the appellate court against the judgment of the accountability court within 10 days of the decisions.

A NAB prosecutor requesting anonymity told Dawn that the decision will be taken after examining the judgments.

However, the judgments make it clear that the evidence in the cases was insufficient.

In both the judgments of SGS and ARY references, the court observed that the prosecution had failed to prove the allegations against the accused including President Asif Ali Zardari, his secretary-general Salman Farooqui, Brig (retired) Aslam Hayat, former chairman Board of Revenue A. R. Siddiqui and the owners of ARY Gold.

The detailed judgments pointed out that the prosecution could not produce any substantial material in support of the allegations. Prosecution witnesses supported the arguments of the defence counsel during cross examination.

In the ARY reference, for instance, the prosecution did not even say that the process for the approval of gold import policy was not transparent.

The NAB prosecutor quoted above also said that weak prosecution cases led to the acquittals.

In his opinion, if the bureau decides to file appeal against the judgments of NAB courts, the decisions the next time around may be no different because of the weak evidence.

It is noteworthy that most of the statements of the witnesses of the prosecution were recorded in 2006. The cases were closed after the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) was promulgated but revived once the Supreme Court struck down the ordinance.However, all this still does not answer the question of whether or not President Asif Ali Zardari is now off the hook as far as these cases are concerned.

Theoretically he is not.

According to the NAB official, the accused who faced the trial were acquitted but not the president. Hence, he can face a trial once his term as president ends, when his immunity will also end.

Amjad Iqbal Qureshi, counsel for owners of M/S ARY, said the matter regarding President Asif Ali Zardari was still pending before the court as he did not appear in the court.

He, however, agreed that the weak evidence, as it exists, will help Zardari in the court case when his presidential immunity ends.

The witnesses are bound to make same statements and the court has already discarded them, he says.

But what if the eyewitnesses change their account? In his opinion this would damage their credibility which in turn would create doubts about whatever incriminating statements they may make.

According to Qureshi, the witnesses admitted that after awarding the gold import licence, the government earned a handsome amount from different duties and taxes whereas earlier gold was being smuggled into the country.

Similarly, added Qureshi, in the SGS case, the court also observed that pre-shipment scheme and the award of the contract to SGS and Cotecna earned an additional Rs27 billion for the national exchequer.

Qureshi’s views were supported by Arshad Tabrez, the defence counsel in SGS case.

He told Dawn that the court pointed out that not a single witness accused Zardari, Benazir Bhutto or the other accused of being involved in corruption.

He added that though Zardari was charge sheeted in 2002, the statements of the witnesses were recorded in 2005 to 2007.

It is important to remember that during those years, the PPP was not in power.