LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has resummoned Pakistan’s ambassador to United States Ali Jahangir Siddiqui for Oct 10 in connection with a case of stock manipulation.

Mr Siddiqi has been summoned to defend the alleged role of his company — M/s Azgard Nine Limited (ANL) — in the manipulation of shares that caused losses of billions of rupees to the national exchequer.

NAB is probing affairs of the ANL with regard to siphoning off funds amounting to 23.7 million euros in 2008, which were used to purchase an Italian Company, Monte Bello SRL.

A foreign company, Fairtal SRL, Sweden, was used for the deal, which suffered losses along with its shareholders.

The NAB said the shares of a company named Agritech Limited were sold to various financial and government institutions at a price higher than the market rate to settle loan defaults. This resulted in a loss of Rs40bn to various financial and government institutions.

The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf had strongly objected to the appointment of Mr Siddiqui as ambassador to the US by the PML-N government.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2018