ISLAMABAD, March 31: An accountability court on Friday ordered to freeze all assets of PPP Parliamentarian leader Asif Ali Zardari in Pakistan and abroad. The judge of the Accountability Court No4 in Rawalpindi, Khalid Mehmood, ordered the departments concerned to confiscate Mr Zardari’s assets while reading out the verdict in a reference filed under Section 88 of the CrPC.
The PPP leader has also been declared absconder in the case about accumulation of assets beyond known means of income.
The NAB had filed a reference before the Accountability Court and charged that Mr Zardari had accumulated property, assets and bank accounts through corruption in “collusive arrangement” with his wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and state functionaries during her tenure in government.
The accountability court was provided a detailed list of the overseas assets, which NAB said it had unearthed successfully.
The court had already issued a ‘perpetual warrant’ for the arrest of Mr Zardari while the Interpol had issued a ‘Red Notice’ against the couple.
Meanwhile, the NAB issued a list of properties, which it said belonged to Mr Zardari, including those which had already been confiscated under the accountability court’s previous orders.
The list included the 355-acre Rockwood Surrey Palace in London and a flat at the Queensgate Terrace and two houses at Hammersmith Road, Wilton Crescent in Kingston, and in Hampstead.
The court also ordered the freezing of Mr Zardari’s properties in Belgium, France and the United States as well as his numerous foreign bank accounts and offshore companies.
