LAHORE: A District and Sessions Court in Lahore on Saturday granted the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) two-day physical remand of Hamid Zaman, one of the PTI’s founding members, in connection with the prohibited funding case.
Zaman and other PTI leaders — including Saifullah Nyazee and Tariq Shafi — were arrested on Friday from Lahore.
According to a first information report (FIR) registered against him, both Zaman and Shafi have been accused of being accomplices of Abraaj founder Arif Masood Naqvi.
The FIR alleged that Naqvi had “siphoned off Rs9.1bn from funds of Abraaj Group and its subsidiary companies abroad and funneled to Aman Foundation’s accounts through Foreign Telegraphic Transfers (FTTs) with unexplained money trail.”
It said that Zaman was the general secretary of the Insaf Trust, which the complaint stated was a “bogus trust to give the impression that same is part of PTI”.
He was also one of the characters named in the Election Commission of Pakistan’s verdict in the PTI’s prohibited funding case and was summoned by the FIA several times following the launch of an FIA probe in the basis of the decision, which stated that the party had, in fact, received prohibited funding from 351 foreign companies and 34 foreign nationals.
Earlier today, Zaman was presented before the court of Judicial Magistrate Ghulam Murtaza Virk. During the hearing, the FIA submitted a plea seeking a 14-day physical remand of the PTI leader.
“The remand is required to complete the investigation,” the agency’s prosecutor, Munim Bashir Chaudhry, said.
Here, Zaman’s lawyer Khwaja Haris said that his client never received a notice of inquiry and requested the court to reject FIA’s request.
“I have all the record documents here. Why is FIA even asking for remand,” he asked.
To this, Chaudhry said: “We need answers as to why foreign transactions were made into the Insaf Fund. The suspect is the general secretary and office holder [of the trust].”
Subsequently, the court granted police Zaman’s two-day physical remand and instructed it to present him in court on Monday.
Last month, the ECP had issued its verdict in the prohibited funding case — previously referred to as the foreign funding case — against the PTI, which stated that the party did indeed receive prohibited funding.
A three-member ECP bench headed by Chief Election Commissioner Sikander (CEC) Sultan Raja had announced the verdict in a case filed by PTI founding member Akbar S. Babar which had been pending since November 14, 2014.
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