Islamabad: Although the hurriedly-amended NAB ordinance signalled the government’s intention to arrest Imran Khan and his wife, officials privy to the graft investigation say it would be difficult to detain them if the law is applied on merit.
The latest amendment to the National Accountability Ordinance has restored the power of the NAB chairman to “issue warrant of arrest during inquiry if the accused is not joining inquiry despite notices or willfully does not cooperate in such inquiry”.
In the cases under question, though Imran was not initially cooperative, he has appeared as and when summoned by the investigators; hence, he can’t be arrested on the grounds of non-appearance. Not only had he joined the investigation, but Imran also passed the buck to others to clear himself from the allegations, according to a source. On the other hand, Bushra Bibi considers this a war between truth and falsehood in which she and her spouse would win.
Imran is being grilled on two counts: buying the gifts he received from abroad at negligible price through faulty evaluation of their worth and allowing the transfer of funds received from the UK’s National Crime Agency into the Supreme Court’s account as payment of fine levied on the property tycoon by the apex court in a case related to encroachment of lands in Karachi. Bushra is being investigated as a trustee of the Al-Qadir Trust, which benefited from the property tycoon.
In the Toshakhana case, Imran had taken a position before NAB that he was not involved in determining the value of gifts he received from abroad. Instead, his military secretary was responsible for this. Hence, Imran argues, his former MS should be held to account in case the evaluation was not properly done. Imran told investigators that he is only accountable if the MS alleges that he (Imran) influenced him into manoeuvring the evaluation process. “Ask him to say this before me,” he told NAB.
About the NCA case, he said that 190 million pounds were repatriated in light of the settlement reached between the NCA and the property tycoon. (NAB doesn’t have access to the settlement agreed between the two.) Imran insisted that the payment suggested the money would go to the tycoon, who wanted it to deposit in the SC account to pay his fine. He said that if the government has any objection, it could divert funds from that account to another one. Asked what necessitated approval from the cabinet, Imran showed ignorance on this question while saying that he was advised and thus let it happen. But if this is something unlawful, he told NAB, it was the decision of the entire cabinet. Hence all of them must be held responsible, not him alone. The NAB also summoned cabinet members. Almost half of them said they couldn’t recall how this happened and hence couldn’t provide details, and the remaining half passed the buck to Shehzad Akbar, the accountability czar of Imran. Shehzad being abroad is out of NAB’s reach. Bushra told NAB that as a trustee, she is not the beneficiary. She said she was told that people of the area (where Al-Qadir University is set up) were poor, and she and her PM husband thought of founding a university. Whoever donated the money was spent on the university and not on her. The NAB gave her a questionnaire in English, and she responded in Urdu, saying she was not very well-educated, hence couldn’t reply in English. She said she got married after she did intermediate and couldn’t continue her education afterwards.
