LAHORE: An accountability court on Tuesday issued bailable arrest warrants of former MPA Qaiser Amin Butt for not appearing before it as an approver against former railways minister Khwaja Saad Rafiq and his brother former provincial minister Khwaja Salman Rafiq in the Paragon City scam.

A lawyer told the court that Butt could not appear due to bad health. He also presented medical certificate to this effect.

The court observed that the approver had failed to appear on last many hearings which could not be tolerated. It issued bailable arrest warrants of the approver and adjourned hearing till Feb 24.

Salman Rafiq was brought to the court from jail whereas Saad Rafiq, sitting MNA of PML-N, was in Islamabad on production order to attend the on-going session of the National Assembly.

The NAB accused the Khwaja brothers of wrongfully gaining Rs18.2m from M/s Paragon City (pvt) Limited in their bank accounts. It said the Khwaja brothers through their “benamidars” and with the abetment of former MPA Qaiser Amin Butt and Nadeem Zia established a housing project in the name of Air Avenue.

It said the suspects along with other accomplices cheated public at large and obtained illegal financial benefits from the funds of the illegal society.

Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2020