ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has received a fresh notice from National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to appear before it on May 17 in Islamabad in connection with some transactions made by a company formerly owned by his father Asif Ali Zardari some eight years back.

Talking to Dawn here on Tuesday, a spokesman for the PPP chairman, Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, said that Mr Bhutto-Zardari had received the notice and he would “comply” with it.

Mr Khokhar, however, said the PPP chairman was still waiting for the opinion of his lawyers who would advise him if he should personally appear before NAB or send a written response. But, he said, the party chairman had already appeared before NAB in the past and he would definitely not hesitate in doing so again.

Mr Khokhar denied reports ran by some TV channels that the PPP chairman had been summoned again in the Park Lane case because during his previous appearance he had failed to give satisfactory replies.

He said the PPP chairman had now been summoned in a new case.

In response to a query, the spokesman said that NAB wanted to question the PPP chairman about a transaction that had been made between a company previously owned by Mr Zardari and Bahria Town in Karachi in 2011. He said Mr Zardari had already resigned from the company in 2008 after becoming the president of the country.

Moreover, he said, when this transaction was made, Mr Bhutto-Zardari was abroad because of his academic commitments.

Mr Khokhar accused NAB of “becoming an instrument of the government and using revenge tactics against the PPP leadership”.

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2019