ISLAMABAD: A total of 1,915 accused and their accomplices, including prominent politicians, prosecuted by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), have been acquitted by courts since the inception of the bureau in 1999.

According to documents of the Ministry of Law and Justice, of the 1,915 accused, 1,240 have been acquitted in Sindh, 314 in Punjab, 218 in Balochistan and 143 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

The list contains the names of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Mariam Safdar, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, PPP Co-Chairman Asif Zardari and his father Hakim Zardari, besides more than 30 politicians, including former chief ministers, federal and provincial ministers and legislators.

The document mentions the name of Finance Minister Ishaq Dar as an `approver’ in the Hudaibia Paper Mills scam, in which all members of the Sharif family were acquitted.

Prominent politicians acquitted in different cases by accountability or high courts over the past 16 years are PML-N Senator Chaudhry Tanveer, Punjab PPP president Manzoor Wattoo, Minister for Defence Production Rana Tanveer Hussain, former Punjab minister Basharat Raja, Yousuf Talpur, Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, Jahangir Badar, Siraj Durrani and Islamuddin Shaikh of PPP and Khalid Kharal, Javed Hashmi, Riaz Fatiana, Liaquat Jatoi, Jam Mashooq Ali, Nawaz Khokhar and Anwar Saifullah Khan.

In July, NAB informed the Supreme Court that it was pursuing more than 150 major scams, involving about Rs568 billion acquired through financial and land allotment irregularities and abuse of power.

The list of pending cases also contains the names of big guns as respondents, including Prime Minister Sharif and his predecessors Yousuf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervez Ashraf, PML-Q leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Asif Zardari, former federal and provincial ministers, senior government officials and individuals from banking and finance sectors.

When contacted, a NAB official said that he could not provide the number of convicted people but he could say that the conviction rate of those prosecuted by the bureau was good.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2015