LAHORE: Another accountability court adjourned a reference of illegal assets against former principal secretary to Prime Minister Fawad Hassan Fawad and directed the NAB to present its witnesses on February 11.

Fawad served on different posts in federal and Punjab as well during previous government of PML-N till the NAB arrested him on July 5, 2018 initially in Ashiana-i-Iqbal Housing scam.

The other suspects include Fawad’s wife Rubab Hassan and his sons Waqar and Anjum. The NAB had initiated inquiry against Fawad following an order by Islamabad High Court passed on a complaint filed by a lawyer Khurram Qureshi in 2017.

The complainant had provided the bureau with evidence of five illegal properties owned by Fawad. He said father of Fawad had retired from army as non-commissioned officer and later served in forest department. Fawad’s father had owned only one house measuring five-marla in Rawalpindi.

The NAB claimed that wife of Fawad was a shareholder in the FYC company. The value of the shares was Rs 350 million and Fawad also purchased a company previously owned by Jahangir Siddiqui, former ambassador to US. The NAB also claimed that the suspect maintained seven personal bank accounts, 14 by his family members and a total of 48 “benami” accounts had been traced during the investigation. “Fawad being principal secretary to prime minister and secretary implementation to chief minister misused his authority and committed massive corruption,” the NAB concluded.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021