ISLAMABAD: Former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) director general Bashir Memon — who is accused of, and being investigated for, facilitating a suspect wanted in financial crimes abroad and for his failure to probe the money laundering allegations against him — claimed the government wanted to make an example of him to scare the civil service into obedience.
Memon, who had resigned from service in December 2019 as a mark of protest against being posted out close to his retirement date, appeared before an inquiry team over the weekend in the $101.2 million banking fraud involving Umar Farooq Zahoor, a Dubai-based Pakistani-Norwegian businessman.
During the course of the inquiry, it came to light that Zahoor with a co-suspect purportedly defrauded a bank of $89.2 million in the Norwegian capital of Oslo in 2010 after remaining involved in another fraudulent scheme worth $12 million in Bern city of Switzerland in 2004.
Memon is accused of, and during the Saturday session quizzed about, allegedly facilitating Zahoor in at least two instances of financial crimes in the Swiss city of Zurich and Oslo, and human trafficking during the former’s tenure as the director-general of the agency.
While the agency has also summoned another former boss Saud Mirza in these cases to ascertain the reasons behind the aforementioned failure, Memon termed the probe a witch-hunt designed to target him.
Speaking about the probe on Geo News programme “Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath,” he claimed the government wanted to send a message to members of the civil service “if they didn’t follow orders, they will have to bear the consequences”.
Responding to a question whether he left the Saturday session without answering the FIA questions, Memon said: “I didn’t leave the interrogation. I have recorded [my ansers]. If the agency wants, I’ll share it on social media.”
He said: “I have secured pre-arrest bail because I know what is going on and who is behind it.”
