LAHORE: PML-N Senator Pervaiz Rashid appeared before the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Monday and recorded his statement regarding an accountability court judge’s video scandal.

The FIA team, headed by Counter Terrorism Wing chief Babar Bakht Qureshi, quizzed Senator Rashid for 30 minutes.

A heavy contingent of police was present outside the FIA building on Temple Road. Unlike the appearance of PML-N deputy secretary general Attaullah Tarar last Friday, party workers did not turn up to hold a demonstration against the FIA raid on its secretariat on Monday.

Talking to Dawn after his appearance, Senator Rashid said he told investigators to hold the forensic audit of the video of accountability judge Arshad Malik in which he allegedly confessed to having convicted former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in the Al-Azizia Mills reference under pressure.

He said if this video turned out to be fake then a case should be registered against the PML-N. Mr Rashid also asked the FIA to contact Nasir Butt in London who claimed to have made this video.

“This is an open-and-shut case and does not need investigation to find out who made this video,” he said, adding that PML-N leaders had held the press conference about this video to tell the people about the innocence of the party’s supreme leader Nawaz Sharif. Besides, the party also believed in proving this evidence in the court of law.

On July 6, PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz had held a press conference at the Model Town secretariat and played a ‘secretly recorded’ video in which judge Arshad Malik was allegedly seen saying that he was pressurised into convicting Nawaz Sharif in the Al-Azizia reference.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2019