KARACHI: A banking court on Friday approached the Supreme Court (SC) to pass necessary order regarding fate of the Federal Investigation Agency’s plea to allow a joint investigation team, appointed by it (SC) to probe into alleged money laundering through ‘fake’ bank accounts, to grill four bankers and businessmen in jail.

Ex-chairman of the Pakistan Stock Exchange Hussain Lawai, Taha Raza, Anvar Majeed and Abdul Ghani Majeed have been detained over their alleged involvement in facilitating around 29 fake bank accounts and Rs4.14 billion money laundering.

Former president Asif Ali Zardari, his sister Faryal Talpur, Zain Malik, the son-in-law of real estate tycoon Malik Riaz along with 14 other bankers and businessmen have also been booked in the same case.

Karachi’s banking court judge Tariq Mehmood Khoso on Friday sent a letter to the SC registrar, intimating it about a pending application filed by the FIA on Tuesday pleading to allow the JIT to grill the four suspects in jail, judicial sources told Dawn on Friday.

The apex court had on Sept 24 restrained the trial court from passing any restraining order or injunction on any application in the case without prior intimation to it.

The judge did not pass any order on the plea citing the apex court’s Sept 24 restraining order and observed that the prosecuting agency may approach the SC in this regard.

In the plea, investigating officer Mohammad Ali Abro said four accused persons were arrested in the present case and after completion of their physical remand in custody of the FIA they were remanded in prison. “The Supreme Court of Pakistan had constituted a Joint Investigation Team, which intends to interrogate these accused persons and confront them on the record available with the JIT,” he said.

Therefore, he had requested the trial court to allow the seven-member JIT to interrogate the accused persons inside the prison from Nov 14 to Nov 17 (one suspect a day). He further urged to issue necessary directives to the prison authorities in this regard.

Defence counsel for the detained suspects had vehemently opposed the plea, arguing that the investigators had completed interrogation of the suspects during their remand in custody of the FIA, thus there was no need to further grill them in jail.

Former president Zardari, Ms Talpur and around 11 others, including Zain Malik and three sons of Anvar Majeed, have already obtained interim pre-arrest bail in the case after the IO declared them as absconders in the interim charge sheet.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2018