PESHAWAR: A special anti-corruption court on Tuesday acquitted former provincial minister for mines Ziaullah Afridi in two corruption cases.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission, which is now defunct, had registered the cases around five years ago accusing the former minister of carrying out illegal appointments and favouring a contractor for the renewal of chromite mines lease in Charsadda district.

The special judge accepted an application of the accused under Section 249-A of Code of Criminal Procedure, which empowers a trial court to acquit an accused at any stage of the proceedings if there is no probability of conviction on basis of the available evidence.

He was charged with making appointments, favouring contractor against the law

He requested the court not to indict him in those cases.

While acquitting Mr Afridi in the two cases, the court decided to continue with the trial into the remaining two cases wherein he has been accused of facilitating illegal mining of phosphate in Abbottabad and also in some other areas. He has not been indicted in those cases until now.

Mr Afridi, who was elected an MPA on the ticket of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf from Peshawar, was arrested by the KPEC on July 9, 2015, initially on the charge of facilitating illegal mining in the province first as the special assistant to the chief minister on mines and mineral development and later as the minister of the same department. Three more cases related to the same department were registered against him.

He was released on bail by the Peshawar High Court in Oct 2016.

After his arrest, he had alleged that the then chief minister, Pervez Khattak, had maneuvered his arrest as he was feeling threatened due to his growing popularity and actions he had taken against illegalities of some important persons in the mining sector. He later joined the Pakistan Peoples Party.

The KPEC was abolished in Jan 2019 by the provincial government, which transferred all cases and investigations pending with it to the Anti- Corruption Establishment (ACE).

Advocate Tariq Afridi said his client was charged with carrying out illegal appointments of some Class-IV employees in his department, whereas neither had he issued any order in this regard nor he was part of the recruiting committee.

Moreover, he argued that Ziaullah Afridi was also not member of a committee which had extended lease of a contractor of chromite mines in Charssada district. He added that none of the members of the said committee except two had testified against him and the said two members had only stated that they were pressurized by the minister for extension of the said lease.

He pointed out that if any illegality was committed, that was done by the committee and not his client.

Recently, Ziaullah Afridi produced certain official documents, which he acquired through the KP Right to Information Act.

They included minute sheets of several observations made by two important officials of the KPEC wherein they had pointed out certain illegalities and loopholes on part of the investigation team in the case against Mr Afridi and had even warned that the case would fail before the trial court.

The record was produced on order of the information commission.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2020