KARACHI: The accountability court-VI judge has summoned prosecution witnesses on May 26 to record their testimonies in a graft case against former federal minister Dr Asim Hussain and others in a Rs17 billion corruption reference.

On Saturday, the defence counsels for the accused completed cross-examination of prosecution witness Azmat.

Dr Asim, a close aide to former president Asif Ali Zardari, along with former managing directors and other senior officials of the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) and the Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC) has been accused of allegedly misusing his authority and fraudulently awarding contracts of five gas fields in Sindh to a privately-managed gas processing company, the Jamshoro Joint Venture Limited (JJVL), that had caused a loss of Rs17.338bn to the exchequer.

In February, the court had indicted Dr Asim, former managing directors of SSGC Khalid Rehman, Zuhair Siddiqui and Azeem Iqbal Siddiqui, former OGDC MD Basharat Mirza, the then deputy MDs of gas utility, Yousuf Jamil Ansari and Shoaib Warsi, former SSGC general manager treasury and finance Malik Usman and JJVL chief executive officer Iqbal Z. Ahmed.

Meanwhile another accountability court also summoned on May 23 the prosecution witnesses in a case pertaining to alleged illegal appointments in the provincial minority affairs department.

On Saturday, the defence lawyers completed cross-examination of a prosecution witness, Dilip Kumar, who testified against the accused.

The then provincial excise secretary and former minority affairs secretary Badar Jamil Mandhro and former minority affairs director Khadim Hussain Channa, then serving as director at the anti-corruption establishment, were arrested by the National Accountability Bureau staff in June 2015. NAB booked them along with over 20 beneficiaries for allegedly taking bribe against appointments of 26 officers in the minority affairs department in 2012-13.

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2018