LAHORE: A district and sessions court in Lahore on Tuesday cleared former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) director general Bashir Memon, who was facing multiple charges including a $101.2 million banking fraud, of criminal wrongdoing.
During the hearing, the court asked the agency about the progress of the investigation. Responding to the judge, the counsel for the agency said the investigation has been finished and it will not file charges against Memon.
Memon, who had resigned from service in December 2019 as a mark of protest against being posted out close to his retirement date, claimed the government of former prime minister Imran Khan wanted to make an example of him to scare the civil service into obedience.
Opening Pandora’s box with a string of allegations against Khan, the former head of FIA claimed that Khan wanted Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) vice president Maryam Nawaz to be tried for terrorism, a claim which was rejected by the government.
In one of the cases, Memon is accused of facilitating a suspect wanted in financial crimes abroad and for his failure to probe the money laundering allegations against him.
He was suspected of being involved 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 was accused of 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.
