ISLAMABAD: The special court on offence in banking on Tuesday approved the pre-arrest interim bail of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Amir Mehmood Kayani in the prohibited funding case.

Special Judge Rakhshanda Shaheen granted the interim bail to Mr Kayani against Rs1 million surety bonds till Nov 23 with a direction to join the investigation.

Former prime minister Imran Khan, PTI leader Saifullah Khan Nyazee, Tariq Shafi and others are already on interim bail in the case.

On October 5, the FIA registered two FIRs in Lahore and Karachi against the PTI leadership under sections 420 and 109 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

The FIR lodged in Lahore accused Arif Naqvi, Tariq Shafi, Zaman Khan, Manzoor Ahmed Chaudhry, Mubashir Ahmed, the management of Habib Bank and the PTI leadership of fraud.

The one registered in Karachi pointed out that Mr Naqvi was a major beneficiary of foreign funding and received foreign telegraphic transfers (FTTs) from Abraaj Investment Management, Aman Foundation, Gray Mackenzie Holdings, Silver Line Holdings and Strelizia ATF Aman.

In an FIR registered earlier this month by the FIA’s commercial bank circle in Islamabad, the investigation agency said: “The PTI submitted an affidavit of [Abraaj founder] Arif Masood Naqvi before the Election Commission of Pakistan stating therein that all the amounts collected in the accounts of WCL (Wootton Cricket Limited) were submitted into PTI’s account in Pakistan … [the] affidavit has been proved to be false/forged as two more transactions were also made from WCL to two different accounts in Pakistan in May 2013.”

The FIR also accused UBL of its failure to report suspicious transactions to the authorities concerned.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2022