FIA summons PTI's Asad Qaiser for inquiry in prohibited funding case

• FIA Peshawar's office summons Asad Qaiser on August 11 at 2pm.
• The notice has been sent in line with FIA's countrywide investigation.
• Qaiser will be questioned about the details of two bank account.

PESHAWAR: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has summoned former National Assembly speaker and senior PTI leader Asad Qaiser in reference to the ongoing inquiry on the prohibited funding case, Geo News reported Saturday.

FIA Peshawar's office summoned Qaiser on August 11 (Thursday) at 2pm.

The notice sent to the former speaker stated that as per the verdict on Akbar S Babar’s case, Qaiser has two bank accounts and he is associated with the functioning of those two accounts; therefore he has been asked to appear before the inquiry team to answer questions regarding the details of the bank account.

FIA launches formal investigation

On Friday, the FIA launched a formal countrywide investigation into the utilisation of funds from “prohibited” sources by PTI after an Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) ruling that the party secured illegal donations.

A five-member monitoring team has been constituted in this regard to supervise inquiries across Islamabad, Karachi, Peshawar, Lahore and Quetta. The team is headed by Muhammad Athar Waheed.

The FIA launched the investigation on a letter written by Babar, requesting a probe against the PTI for receiving funds through accounts opened in the name of junior employees.

Akbar S Babar formally approached the FIA to initiate a probe against the PTI on Wednesday.

Babar told the FIA that the PTI’s financial board in 2011 illegally authorised four employees of the party’s central secretariat to collect donations in their personal accounts from within Pakistan and abroad.

A sum of Rs11.104 million was deposited in the accounts of the PTI employees which was beyond their known sources of income, Babar said in his letter.

He wrote that the funds were received through the accounts of employees Tahir Iqbal, Muhammad Nauman Afzal, Muhammad Arshad, and Muhammad Rafiq.

Acting on this letter and the ECP ruling on this case, the FIA is probing the utilisation of funds from 13 undeclared accounts and has issued notices to the account holders.

Sources close to these developments say the FIA also wants to probe whether there are unknown accounts, besides looking into sources of funding in these accounts, how much funds were sent through them and whether funds were transferred in accordance with the laws of host countries.