Pak FM appears before accountability court in Panama scandal

Islamabad, Oct. 12 (PTI): Pakistan’s embattled Finance Minister Ishaq Dar today appeared before an anti-corruption court here to face trial in a graft case filed against the close aide of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif by the accountability bureau in the Panama Papers scandal.

The case about owning “assets beyond known means of income” is among four graft cases filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) following the Supreme Court’s order of July 28 against Dar and Sharif and his family.

The apex court had also disqualified Sharif and ordered corruption cases against him, his children Maryam, Husain and Hasan and son-in-law Muhammad Safdar.

Officials said that two witnesses including Al-Baraka Bank Senior Vice-President Tariq Javed and Shahid Aziz of the National Investment Trust (NIT) asset management company testified against the finance minister.

Dar, 67, invested Rs 120 million as finance minister in 2015 in NIT but withdrew this money after the Panama Papers case started in January 2017, Aziz told the court.

Javed of Al-Baraka Bank provided details of Dar account in the bank’s Lahore branch. He said Dar opened the account in 1991, where his wife, Tabassum Ishaq Dar, also had account in the bank. She was also owner of HDS Securities Private Limited company.

Both witnesses were cross-examined by Dar’s lawyer Khawaja Haris.

Dar was indicted last month in the case in which he is accused of making assets, which are not in accordance with his known sources of income.