LAHORE: An accountability in Lahore on Thursday granted the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) fourteen-day remand of former minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Khawaja Asif.
The anti-graft body arrested Asif from Islamabad on Tuesday after he failed to provide required evidence in an inquiry pertaining to being in possession of assets beyond his declared sources of income.
A day earlier, an accountability court in Islamabad handed him to the bureau on one-day remand for him to be transferred to Lahore where the case will be heard.
During the proceedings, the NAB prosecutor informed the court that the former minister was facing charges of accumulating assets beyond known sources of income.
Asif had amassed wealth in the names of his wife and children as well, the prosecutor said, adding that initially worth Rs5.1 million in the early ’90s, the assets ballooned to Rs812.1m in 2020.
The prosecutor told the court that the PML-N leader had not disclosed the means through which he accumulated these assets and requested physical remand of Asif so that the investigation against him could be completed.
However, the defense counsel objected to the request, maintaining that the case against his client was “baseless” and “false”.
Asif alleged he had been shifted to NAB’s custody in Lahore because Prime Minister Imran Khan “couldn’t get the desired result when an inquiry was launched against him by the watchdog’s Rawalpindi chapter”.
The defense further told the court that the NAB, Rawalpindi, had summoned his client multiple times and his client had appeared before the anti-graft watchdog each time. Besides, he appeared before the NAB, Lahore, all five times he was summoned, the counsel added.
He said all records asked for by the NAB too had been provided, objecting to the watchdog’s request of a physical remand.
The court, however, sent Asif on a physical remand till January 13, directing the NAB to submit a progress report on the investigation at the next hearing. It further directed the watchdog to let Asif meet his relatives, adding that Asif must be presented before the court at the next hearing as well.
