Assets beyond means-cum-money laundering case: LHC denies post-arrest bail to Hamza Shahbaz

The Lahore High Court on Tuesday denied post-arrest bail to Leader of Opposition in Punjab Assembly Hamza Shahbaz in a case of assets beyond means-cum-money laundering.

Earlier, the court repeatedly asked the counsel of Hamza to explain sources of income of his client but it found no satisfactory answer. The counsel mainly put emphasis on his argument against jurisdiction of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to invoke Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) 2010.

"The bureau's ordinance does not allow its investigating officers to exercise powers under the AMLA," the counsel responded to a query by the court. The charges leveled against the petitioner fell within the domain of AMLA, he said, and added that the foreign remittances could be put to investigation within the period of five years only.

In case of the petitioner, the counsel said, the NAB launched its inquiry after 10 years pertaining to a period when the petitioner was not a public office holder.

To a court's query, the NAB Special Prosecutor said assets of the petitioner and his family increased by Rs417 million from 2008 to 2019. The petitioner alone received Rs181 million as foreign remittances during 2005-08, he added.

At this, the court asked the petitioner's counsel if he could explain sources of income of his client.

The counsel said each and every income of the petitioner was already declared in his income tax returns and the same were also available with the NAB. He said the amounts being questioned by the bureau were received by the petitioner from his father, brother and sister. The court asked the counsel to discuss the role of co-suspects in the case against Hamza.

The counsel said the NAB could tell the court about the role of the co-suspects as reference had not been filed so far. The counsel further argued that there had been no allegation of corruption or receiving any illegal gratification against the petitioner.

The prosecutor said the bureau traced three persons who used to send money to the petitioner from abroad and two of them also turned approver in the case. He also presented confessional statements of approvers namely Mehboob Ali and Aftab Ahmad.

He said the petitioner received gifts of worth Rs108 million from his brother and sister during 2013-17. He said CNICs of strange persons including street vendors were used for sending the amount of these gifts. The prosecutor further said the petitioner established several benami companies and laundered billions of rupees through their accounts.

Reverting to the petitioner's counsel, the court observed that it got no satisfactory answers of the queries about the petitioner's sources of income. The counsel said the AMLA could only be invoked if there was an offence. He said the law invoked by the NAB was made long after the transactions of the petitioner. The court after hearing both the sides at length dismissed the bail of Hamza Shahbaz.