The Accountability Court Wednesday rejected former President National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) Saeed Ahmed's plea seeking acquittal in a corruption reference filed against former Finance Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar wherein he is one of the co-accused.
While hearing the corruption reference against Dar for having assets beyond means, Accountability Court Judge Muhammad Bashir announced his reserved verdict on Saeed's plea and rejected it. The court on July 23, 2018 reserved its judgement on the same application but later on the request of co-accused on January 30, 2019, it had allowed his counsel for making further arguments on his acquittal plea.
All the three co-accused - Saeed, Mansoor Raza Rizvi and Naeem Mehmood - and both the directors of Dar's companies, appeared before the court. During the course of hearing, the defence counsel cross-examined the prosecution witness Muhammad Aftab. The defence counsel and the NAB prosecutor exchanged harsh words with each other during the hearing.
The defence counsel said he can ask question from the witness about what is mentioned in the record. On this, the NAB prosecutor replied that the witness could not remember each and every detail about the case. The court recorded the statement of prosecution witness Zafer Iqbal and summoned two other witnesses Salman Saeed and Sidra Mansoor of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) on the next date of hearing to record their statements. The cross-examination of the witness will continue during the next hearing to be held on February 27.