Bilawal to appear before NAB on Wednesday

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will appear before the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Wednesday.

Bilawal will appear before NAB accompanied by his lawyers and party leaders. PPP workers from across the country have been told to come to Islamabad to express solidarity with the party chairman.

NAB has summoned Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in connection with the Park Lane Estate case.

Meanwhile, former president Asif Ali Zardari has challenged NAB’s call-up-notice in the Sindh High Court (SHC). 

The former president and his sister Faryal Talpur had earlier moved the SHC against the banking court’s decision to transfer the mega money laundering case to Islamabad.

Last week, a banking court in Karachi ordered the transfer of the case to Islamabad and summoned Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on March 20.

The case

The FIA is investigating 32 people in relation to money laundering from fictitious accounts, including Zardari and Talpur. Zardari’s close aide Hussain Lawai was arrested in July last year in connection with the probe.

The former president’s other close aide and Omni Group chairman Anwar Majeed a close aide and Omni Group chairman and his son, Abdul Ghani, were arrested by FIA in August 2018.

Over 20 ‘benami’ accounts at some private banks were opened in 2013, 2014 and 2015 from where transactions worth billions of rupees were made, according to sources.

The amount, according to FIA sources, is said to be black money gathered from various kickbacks, commissions and bribes.