Pak finance minister Ishaq Dar indicted
ISLAMABAD : Pakistan’s Finance Minister Ishaq Dar was on Wednesday indicted by an anticorruption court hearing the Panama Papers case for possessing assets beyond known sources of income.
The minister pleaded not guilty to all charges, terming them baseless.
Anti-corruption watchdog National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on September 8 filed a case against Dar for possessing assets beyond his known sources of income following the July 28 verdict of the Supreme Court.
The apex court had disqualified Nawaz 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.
Dar asked to be spared of personal appearance and the court said it will decide later.