An Accountability Court on Friday acquitted Co-Chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Asif Ali Zardari from BMW reference under National Reconciliatory Ordinance (NRC). The Accountability Court, Rawalpindi, resumed hearing on the application regarding the acquittal of Zardari from the BMW corruption reference under the NRO.
On Wednesday, Judge Sagheer Ahmed Qadri deferred BMW reference, saying Zardari was absconder in this reference, and he should appear in the court. The Accountability Court asked prosecutor of the National Accountability Bureau Dr Danishwar Malik, about his remarks on the application.
Dr Malik pleaded before the court that the reference fell in the jurisdiction of the NRO, so that he did not want to argue on this reference. Zardari's counsel Farooq H Naik told the learned court that his client had spent more than eight years in jail during which the NAB had failed to prove any single case against him.
After the enactment of the NRO, Asif Ali Zardari has been acquitted from all seven corruption references filed against him by National Accountability Bureau (NAB). Sindh High Court has asked the Federal government to make sure the withdrawal of all the corruption cases against Zardari abroad.
Later, Farooq H Naik told reporters that the SHC had directed the government that if there was no corruption reference against Zardari abroad and falling under the NRO, it should be withdrawn and submit report on this on March 21. Naik said that Zardari was implicated in politically motivated cases and the NAB had failed to prove any single case against him.
Naik said the government had filed a case against Asif Ali Zardari in Geneva and since 1998, the inquiry of the case had not been completed nor presented in any court of law. He said that the BMW reference was filed against Zardari in 2000, when the courts had granted bail to him in all cases.