Ishaq Dar indicted in corruption case
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Finance Minister Ishaq Dar was indicted by an anti-corruption court on Wednesday, but the close aide of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif pleaded not guilty to possessing assets beyond his means.
Dar’s indictment comes a day after the Accountability Court decided to indict Sharif on October 2 after the former prime minster for the first time appeared before it to face graft charges against him in the Panama Papers scandal.
The 67-year old minister pleaded not guilty to all charges against him, terming them baseless.
Dar was swept up in the corruption case stemming from documents leaked from a Panama law firm, which appeared to show that senior officials, including Sharif, had undisclosed assets. Anticorruption watchdog National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on September 8 filed the case against Dar, 67, for possessing assets beyond his known sources of income following the July 28 verdict of the Supreme Court.
The apex court had disqualified Sharif as the prime minister and ordered corruption cases against him, his children Maryam, Husain and Hasan and son-in-law Muhammad Safdar.
Chaos prevailed outside the accountability court when Dar arrived for the hearing.
The doors to the court were shut for reporters, and the finance minister had to wait at least 20 minutes before he was allowed to enter the court premises from the back door.
The minister refused to accept the charges read out by accountability court judge Muhammad Bashir and said his assets were in accordance with income and he will prove it with evidence during the trial.
The court ordered the NAB to present evidence and the NAB prosecutor submitted a list of 28 witnesses whom it would present in the court to testify in support of the charges. Full story @ timesofoman.com/world