June 26, 2003	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 25,1424

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ISLAMABAD, June 25: The opposition on Wednesday decided to file corruption charges against National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain.

MMA vice president Qazi Hussain Ahmed, while briefing journalists after a meeting at the Parliament Lodges here, said that the National Accountability Bureau had, through a letter sent on June 21, cited irregularities committed by the speaker in purchase of a 16-kanal property.

He also announced that the opposition would press on with the submission of its no-trust motion against the speaker until he was removed and replaced by an impartial man, adding that if the opposition was threatened, it would expand its campaign in this regard.

Qazi Hussain said that a number of government legislators were secretly supporting the opposition’s move. He, however, declined to give their exact numbers or names.

He said that the opposition would not give a call for public agitation before Aug 14.

Declining to comment on President Pervez Musharraf’s ongoing US visit, he said that he would not comment until he returned.

He was accompanied by Mehmud Khan Achakzai, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Liaqat Baloch and Hafiz Hussain Ahmed.

Referring to Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s sudden dash to France one of the MMA leaders said that it had been pre-scheduled, adding that he had gone there on the invitation of Jamaat-i- Dawat Al Islamia and would return on June 28.

SPEAKER CLARIFIES: Speaker of the National Assembly Chaudhry Amir Hussain has clarified his position vis-a-vis allegations levelled against him by the opposition, saying the plot in question had been allotted to him under the government of Punjab’s education policy and was purchased on payment with no relaxation in the relevant rules and a school was still operative on the said land.

“Although I am not in the habit of talking lose I can still point out a number of irregular privileges that various leaders of MMA had availed during tenures of various governments” he asserted.

The speaker accused another legislator of acquiring a plot, several times larger then the one he had been allotted, in one of the Lahore townships.