LAHORE: A special court (Offence in Banks-II) on Saturday granted post-arrest bail to PTI’s former leader Hamid Zaman in a ‘foreign funding’ case registered by the FIA.

In the bail granting order, Judge Aslam Gondal observed that the record was sufficient to conclude that the case against the petitioner needed further probe. He noted that the prosecution’s case was not free of doubts and the petitioner was entitled to the concession of benefit of doubt even at bail stage.

The judge said, “A careful perusal of section 464 of the PPC while keeping in view the content of the FIR and material collected during the investigation leads me to conclude that the attraction of section 468 and 471 [of the] PPC needs further inquiry.”

He said during the arguments it was also noted that signatures of the petitioner were not available on the cheques in question.

The judge allowed the bail petition subject to furnishing of bail bonds worth Rs1 million.

The petitioner’s counsel argued that the case was totally false and there was not an iota of evidence to connect the petitioner with any of the offences alleged in the FIR. He said the petitioner already joined the investigation and was no more required for the purpose of investigation.

The FIR alleged that Tariq Shafi got registered a bogus trust – “The Insaf Trust”– to give an impression that the same was part of the PTI, as chairman, with Ashiq Hussain Qureshi as deputy chairman, Hamid Zaman as general secretary, Manzoor Ahmad and Mubashir Ahmad as trustees. It said the funding received in the trust was used for the PTI’s political campaigns.

The agency alleged the suspects and Arif Naqvi of the Abraaj Group, in collusion with the PTI leadership and others, committed a fraud.

Published in Dawn, October 23th, 2022