Khawaja Asif sent to jail on judicial remand in assets case

LAHORE: An accountability court in Lahore has sent Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) leader Khawaja Asif to jail on 14-day judicial remand in assets beyond income case, ARY News reported on Friday.

The accountability court’s judge Jawadul Hassan heard the case pertains to the assets beyond income against PML-N senior leader Khawaja Asif. The accused was produced before the court amid strict security arrangements.

During the hearing, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) prosecutor sought physical remand of Khawaja Asif. He said that millions of rupees had been deposited in different bank accounts of the accused, whereas, Rana Abdul Waheed had deposited Rs30 million. When the persons got interrogated, they said that Asif had given the cash to deposit it to the accounts, he added.

Read: NAB traces Khawaja Asif’s ‘benami’ shares in firm

Khawaja Asif had not disclosed the sources of income to get Rs280 million in his accounts, whereas, he also failed to provide satisfactory answers for making Rs60 million investments in different companies. In 2009, Rs100 million had been deposited to his account from a foreign country, the prosecutor said.

The judge remarked that NAB is responsible for holding investigation and it should tell the court about the information it collected from a foreign company. To this, NAB prosecutor said that the company’s owner is Asif’s friend and he is summoned on January 28.

The defence lawyer argued that the investigators want Asif to carry out his own investigation.

Read: Khawaja Asif transferred Rs120 million to Kashmala Tariq

The judge remarked that the court will not intervene in the investigation process. He questioned the NAB prosecutor about the reasons for not completing the inquiry so far. The judge said that NAB could hold an investigation in Dubai as well if the accused did not provide satisfactory answers to their queries.

The prosecutor said that they wanted him to provide slips and relevant documents regarding his employment in a foreign country.

Asif’s lawyer argued that physical remand could not be given on the basis of the prosecutor’s arguments as he has provided all documents required to NAB for investigation.

Read: NAB submits report on Khawaja Asif’s shares in firms, banks to court

Asif had received five notices from NAB Rawalpindi and he appeared before the investigators to provide the concerned documents. Moreover, his lawyers have also appeared in the hearings for dozens of times, the lawyer added.

After listening to the arguments from both sides, the accountability court rejected NAB’s plea for physical remand of Khawaja Asif and approved judicial remand of 14 days.

The court ordered the authorities to produce Khawaja Asif on February 7 again. Later, the jail officials left the accountability court along with Khawaja Asif.