PESHAWAR: A local accountability court here on Friday acquitted former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Ameer Haider Hoti’s brother, Ghazan Khan, in a high-profile case about the receiving of kickbacks in weapons procurement for the provincial police department in 2009-10.

Judge Ibrahim Khan accepted the acquittal application of Ghazan Khan in the case under Section 265-K of the Code of Criminal Procedure and ordered his release.

The said section empowers the court to acquit an accused at any stage of the trial if the court believes that there is no probability of his or her conviction in a case.

The court also approved the plea bargain application of Ghazan Khan’s brother-in-law and suspect, Raza Ali, who was earlier arrested in the same case.

Accountability court okays Rs22.5m plea bargain of another suspect

The National Accountability Bureau chairman had accepted the said application of Raza Ali, who agreed to pay Rs22.5 million to the bureau, and had referred the application to the court for final approval.

The judge pronounced orders on the two applications after hearing arguments of both the parties.

Ghazan was arrested by the NAB, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on Apr 15, 2014, after the high court had denied him pre-arrest bail in the same case. Later on, the high court twice dismissed his writ petitions seeking bail on Sept 17, 2014, and Apr 8, 2015.

The NAB has alleged that an approver in the case Arshad Majeed, who was a private contractor, had claimed that he had paid Rs195 million to Ghazan through his front man Raza Ali, who was also arrested in the same case.

It alleged that in return of the payment he had asked Arshad Majeed to raise the price of bulletproof jackets, which he was providing to the police, from the already approved price.

Ghazan’s counsel Qazi Jawad Ahsanullah argued that the NAB chairman had already accepted plea bargain application of Raza Ali, who had agreed to pay Rs22.5 million to the bureau. He added that when the NAB chairman had accepted his plea, then there was no charge left against Ghazan.

The lawyer said the NAB had not brought forward any evidence to prove that the amount received by Raza Ali was onward handed over to Ghazan.

He said Raza had also in his statement claimed that he had not handed over any money to Ghazan and therefore, he was innocent and wrongly implicated in the instant case.

Qazi Jawad argued that there was no evidence on record to corroborate the statement of Arshad Majeed.

He added that the petitioner had been doing his business in UAE for many years and had got nothing to do with the affairs of the police department.

The lawyer argued that the high court had already set free Raza on bail as he had entered into plea bargain with the NAB and in that condition there was no charge left against Ghazan for which he would be tried.

He said it would be appropriate to accept the application and acquit Ghazan as there was no probability of his conviction in the present case even after completion of trial.

The investigation officer in the case, Enayat Khan, also recorded his statement and said Raza Ali had conceded in his statement that he had received Rs19.5 million from Arshad Majeed, but the money remained with him and was not been given to Ghazan.

Lawyer Umar Farooq Adam appeared for Raza Ali in his plea bargain application and contended that the applicant had submitted the plea bargain application under Section 25 (b) of National Accountability Ordinance 1999 after agreeing to return back the amount for which he was charged by the NAB. He said the NAB chairman had accepted his plea and that the applicant had already paid more than half of the amount and had mortgaged properties with the NAB for paying rest of the amount.

NAB deputy prosecutor general Jamil Khan did not oppose the application saying the bureau’s chairman had accepted his request.

A reference of Rs2.03 billion was filed last year against suspects, including former provincial police officer Malik Naveed, who is behind bars, Ghazan, Raza, budget officer of police Jawed Khan and six other police officials.

Until now, none of them have been indicted in the case.

Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2015

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