ISLAMABAD:Two accused in a corruption reference against former Finance Minister Ishaq Dar have requested the accountability court to delay their indictment until provision of a legible copy of the 700-page-long reference was provided to them.
The accountability court hearing the assets accumulation case against Dar had on March 5 said that the accused should be indicted in the case on March 12.
During the hearing on Wednesday, the counsel of the accused, Naeem Mehmood and Mansoor Rizvi, argued before the judge that the bureau had provided his clients with a 700-page-long reference, many pages of which were not legible.
The lawyer said that 70 of the 700 pages in the reference were in foreign languages.
The defendants prayed to the court that they could not be indicted until the provision of a legible copy of the reference along with a translated version.
The accountability court issued a notice to NAB to submit its response on the plea and adjourned the hearing till March 12.
Dar, a relative of PML-N quaid Nawaz Sharif, is accused of possessing assets beyond his declared sources of income.
NAB filed an interim reference against him in September last year in view of the Supreme Court’s July 28, 2017, verdict in the Panama Papers case.
The supplementary reference is based on seven volumes and includes details of bank account details of the accused persons, with transactions amounting to $4.06 million, according to NAB’s Special Prosecutor Imran Shafiq.
Published in Daily Times, March 8th 2018.
