KARACHI: A judicial magistrate has reissued a non-bailable arrest warrant for television and social media personality Waqar Zaka for his alleged involvement in a Rs86 million cryptocurrency scam.

Mr Zaka has been booked by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in connection with an inquiry into alleged virtual currency-related transactions from his bank account.

When Judicial Magistrate (East) Ramesh Kumar took up the matter for hearing, the FIA special public prosecutor filed a statement stating that the arrest warrant issued by the court on Dec 22, 2022 could not be served on the suspect since his whereabouts were not known.

Later, Advocate Salahuddin Panhwar appeared and filed the power (vakalatnama) signed by the suspect and duly attested by Pakistan’s mission in New York.

He also moved an application pleading that his client could not appear in court since he was on a professional assignment in the United States and requested to condone his absence for the day.

However, the magistrate noted that the suspect neither appeared/surrendered before the court nor sought any bail from the competent court.

The court told his counsel to first advance arguments on the maintainability of the plea to condone his client’s absence and fixed the matter on Jan 19.

Published in Dawn, January 11th, 2023