Former Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s remand extended for ‘final time’

ISLAMABAD: The Accountability Court (AC) of Islamabad on Thursday extended the physical remand of former Prime Minister and senior Vice President of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and former finance minister Miftah Esmail ‘for the last time’ in a case linked to the awarding of a 15-year contract for a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal against the rules. The case was closed in 2016 but was reopened by the country’s anti-graft agency, the National Accountability Bureau, last year.

Both the PML-N leaders were presented before the court by NAB officials, who requested the court for extension of their remand.

Accountability Court judge Mohammad Bashir asked the NAB IO why the bureau was delaying submitting a final challan against the accused as Abbasi was in their custody for the last 56 days since his arrest on July 18, 2019.

The Investigation Office told the court that he had to go through the records and evidence which he had brought from Karachi.

Waheed Haider, a counsel for Miftah Ismail, told the court that his client was being kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. He requested the court to allow the former finance minister to have lunch with Khaqan Abbasi.

He also opposed the NAB’s plea for extension in remand arguing that it would be injustice to extend the remand for 14 more days.

The court, however, after listening to arguments from both sided extended the remand for 14 days saying it was the final extension in their remand and directed the officials to produce them on September 26 again.

During the hearing, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi who has refused to hire a lawyer for his representation in the case urged the court to give 90-day remand so that he could at least ‘teach’ NAB what LNG case actually was. Since his arrest, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has put up a brave show refusing to accept any relief in terms of a state counsel or accepting production orders by Speaker National Assembly for participating in the parliamentary sessions.

“Speaker National Assembly should first issue production orders for all the members of the National Assembly without any discrimination,” replied Abbasi when asked why he was not going to attend the National Assembly session taking place on Kashmir Thursday evening.

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi also ‘apologized’ to the nation for appointing the National Accountability (NAB) chairman who according to him was playing a tool in the hands of the government to victimize the opposition.

“The name of NAB chairman had come from Pakistan People’s Party and appointment was made with consensus,” said he while talking to media persons outside the court.

NAB Karachi has also recommended opening of another reference against Abbasi for allegedly violating rules and procedures set by the federal government in appointing ‘his friend’ Sheikh Imranul Haq as Managing Director (MD) of the Pakistan State Oil (PSO).

According to a statement issued by NAB, Abbasi had appointed Haq as MD of PSO by allegedly violating rules and procedures laid down for appointments of chief executive officers in public sector enterprises.