ISLAMABAD: An accountability court in Islamabad on Wednesday indicted Pakistan Peoples Party leader and former Senate deputy chairman Saleem Mandviwalla and other suspects in Kidney Hills reference.
Mandiviwalla and other suspects appeared before Accountability Judge Muhammad Bashir. On the outset of the hearing, they were provided with a copy of the charge sheet.
However, the accused pleaded innocence and decided to contest the allegations, following which the court summoned two witnesses of the National Accountability Bureau, Nisar Magsi and Sheikh Jamal, to record their statement on the next hearing on July 13.
According to the dirty money watchdog, Mandviwala purchased 3.1 million shares of Mangla View Resort in the name of his staffer Tariq Mehmood, an accused in the case involving former president and PPP co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari.
It said Rs30 million were paid for the purchase of these shares from the fake accounts of A-One International.
The shares with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan were frozen last month lest Mandviwala may dispose of the shares.
A NAB report claimed that former Pakistan International Airlines chairman “Aijaz Haroon and Saleem Mandviwala, in connivance with each other, embezzled the government land through illegal and fraudulent allotment and received illegal and unlawful gains of Rs144.2 million from fake bank accounts namely A-One International and Lucky International under the garb of [a] business deal or property transaction with Abdul Ghani Majeed, chief executive officer Omni Group”.
It said the proceeding in the case further revealed that the purported property and business deal was coordinated by the accused using his brother Nadeem Mandviwala’s real estate company, Mandviwala Builders and Developers, and received Rs64.2 million out of Rs144.2 million.
The same, it said, was misappropriated through the purchase of a trust called Dawat-i-Hadiyah, Karachi by the accused.
Mandviwalla has denied the allegations, claiming the case is “unfair and prejudicial”.
