KARACHI: An accountability court on Saturday indicted senior Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim and 10 others in the National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) corruption case.

According to details, NAB court number 3 indicted the senior PPP leader along with former secretary of the commerce ministry Suleman Ghani and a number of other senior officials of the NICL in the multi-billion-rupee scam case.

Also read: NAB seeks Fahim's response in NICL scam case

Former chairman NICL Ayaz Khan Niyazi, directors Syed Hur Riahi Gardezi, Syed Naveed Hassan Zaidi, Amin Qasim Dada, Mohammad Zahoor along with two private persons Amir Hussain and Khawaja Akbar Butt were indicted today.

Amin Fahim and Suleman Ghani were indicted in absentia as the court accepted their counsel Haq Nawaz Halipoto's plea for exemption from appearance on account of the fact that his clients were abroad.

The accused have been indicted for causing huge financial losses to the national exchequer by purchasing a 10 Acre plot purchased in Korangi Deh Phihai in August 2009 at the rate of Rs.90,000,000/- per acre, against maximum market price of Rs.20,000,000/- per acre, causing a loss of Rs.70,000,000/- per acre to the national exchequer.

The court has also ordered the complainant former secretary commerce to appear for the September 30 hearing.

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According to a report published in Dawn newspaper back in 2011, secretary of the ministry of commerce Zafar Mehmood had sent a written complaint to the FIA on Nov 16, 2010 in which he had requested them to probe all purchases of land at various places and on different times by the NICL. He had further requested to register a separate case regarding the prima facie embezzlement of NICL funds in the transaction of 10 acres purchased in August 2009 in a Korangi area against the amount of Rs90 million per acre, which allegedly caused huge losses to the exchequer.

Another accountability court had acquitted Ayaz Khan Niazi and five other NICL officials in a similar case pertaining to financial embezzlement in the purchase of a piece of land in Dubai in 2009, a Dawn newspaper report had said.

The cases regarding the NICL land scam were being managed by an anti-corruption court but were later transferred to the accountability court as the NAB moved an application to the judge of the anti-corruption court and submitted that since the apex court had transferred the investigation of the cases in question from FIA to NAB, the cases might be sent to an accountability court.