RAWALPINDI, May 13: An Accountability Court here on Tuesday summoned former interior minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao to appear on May 21.

The court was hearing the former minister’s plea for acquittal in a corruption reference under the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).

The National Accountability Bureau’s Deputy Prosecutor-General Zulfiqar Ahmad Bhutta told the judge, Saghir Ahmad Qadri, that the accused had withdrawn his petitions from the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court that had absolved the former minister from appearing before the trial court, suspending the trial against him in 2004.

He said the 2004 order of the accountability court about personal appearance of the former federal minister was ‘intact’ when the court had summoned him at the time of formally framing charges.

In late 2007, the NAB filed a petition with the LHC, seeking withdrawal of the stay order against Mr Sherpao’s trial.

Meanwhile, the former minister himself moved a petition in the high court, calling for the withdrawal of the stay order under the NRO in the New City Project. On March 5, the former federal minister’s lawyer had filed an acquittal petition.

The corruption reference against Aftab Sherpao filed in April 2003 alleged that one of the accused in the land scam had transferred some money to a foreign account of the minister. The land for the project was bought along the Islamabad Highway and people had paid Rs210 million for plots in the housing project.