Norway drops Umar Zahoor case citing lack of sufficient evidence

OSLO/ISLAMABAD: The corruption case against Umar Farooq Zahoor was dropped this week due to a lack of sufficient evidence. It was dropped after he sued the senior prosecutor who had kept its file open for years.

Norway’s top prosecuting authority has dismissed the 16-year-old case against the Norwegian-Pakistani businessman, establishing that there is not enough evidence either to prosecute him or to justify keeping the file open. The documents record the case being dropped “due to the state of the evidence”, found to be “insufficient”, and instruct law enforcement agencies, including the police, to “take the necessary steps regarding any still-active wanted-person alerts/notices”, withdrawing outstanding notices and warrants at home and abroad.

The route to that decision ran through a defamation claim. In recent months Zahoor launched a legal case against senior Norwegian prosecutor Carl Graff Hartmann, alleging that he had conspired against him over the years in collusion with the right-wing Norwegian tabloid Verdens Gang, repeatedly targeting him on false grounds.

Zahoor’s specific allegation is that Hartmann repeatedly provided defamatory and false narratives to his contacts in the right-wing media, and did so to settle what Zahoor describes as a personal enmity against him.

Once those proceedings were launched, Norwegian authorities referred the underlying case to the chief prosecutor for review. Within a week of receiving the file, the chief prosecutor dismissed it completely.

The court documents set out why the timing matters. Norwegian law-enforcement authorities began investigating in 2010, over a multi-million-kroner fraud against the bank Nordea. Zahoor cooperated with police through his lawyers. In 2012, Oslo Police closed the case on evidential grounds and recommended to the public prosecutor that the case against Zahoor be dismissed.

Hartmann kept the file open for years and continued making statements to the media.

That gap — between what the investigators concluded in 2012 and what continued to be said publicly afterwards — is the substance of Zahoor’s complaint. He was accused of being one of the alleged principal figures behind the Nordea fraud. He denied any role from the start, launched several legal challenges, and pointed out that the banking case dated from 2010 while he had not been to Norway since 2005. Norway sought his extradition anyway; the UAE refused, citing a lack of evidence.

The Oslo Police clearance letter, with an investigation report by the Federal Investigation Agency, formed the basis of a May 2023 decision by Lahore judicial magistrate Ghulam Murtaza Virk clearing Zahoor in two fraud and money-laundering cases registered in 2020, during the PTI government, following complaints by his former wife, Sophia Mirza. After their bitter divorce, Mirza had alleged involvement in the 2010 Norwegian bank fraud and a separate alleged fraud in Bern, Switzerland, in 2004. The FIA told the court its investigation found no evidence establishing Zahoor’s involvement in fraud, money laundering or corruption.

In a statement issued through his Norwegian lawyer, Zahoor said he was relieved the case had been quashed by the same authority that built it against him.

“For nearly 16 years, this case has followed my name around the world,” he said. “It has followed me to banks, authorities, business partners and international meetings. But the worst thing is not what it has cost me professionally. The worst is the moments with my family that I can never get back.”

“I am thankful to the prosecutor who saw through the facts and dismissed the case, which was based on untruths,” he said.