ISLAMABAD, Jan 30: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is not investigating assets of senior officials of the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL), a NAB spokesman told reporters here on Friday.

The spokesman said the bureau could take a suo motu action against any KRL official to investigate her assets. However, at present it was not being done by NAB, he added.

"It is a sensitive issue, therefore, it is being handled directly by the government," he added. The spokesman said that a reference had been made against former naval chief Mansoor ul Haq, his daughter and wife for keeping assets beyond their known sources of income.

He said the assets belonging to him, his daughter and wife amounted to Rs29.3 million. "Since he was found guilty, the Pakistan Navy has also withdrawn his title of the naval chief," he added.

Mr Haq, he said, had been sentenced to seven years' rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs2 million. A former Rear Admiral, Javed Ali, had also been convicted and given three years' rigorous imprisonment in the same case, but he was at large, the official said.

Responding to a question about a plea bargain deal struck with Mr Haq, the NAB official said it had been made in a separate case in which he had been convicted of his involvement in a ship purchase case.

Talking about the recovery so far made by NAB, he said the bureau had recovered a total of Rs116.59 billion under the plea bargain, bank default, cooperative scams and others over past four years.

He said 1,296 investigations were being conducted against 309 politicians, 205 businessmen, 644 bureaucrats, 21 armed forces personnel and 116 others. Out of them, 480 investigations had been completed, 494 were under progress and 322 had been closed, he added.

The spokesman said that two former prime ministers, 10 former chief ministers, 63 members of the National Assembly, 10 senators and 91 members of provincial assemblies were under investigations.

About prosecutions, he said that 649 cases were filed by NAB out of which 387 had been decided by courts. About 308 people had been convicted, 61 acquitted, 18 withdrawn and 261 cases were in progress in the courts.

The spokesman said the bureau was not investigating any case against Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali. "The prime minister has never been under investigation," the official said.

He said NAB was counter-checking declaration of assets made by parliamentarians before the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of Pakistan. "We are dealing with 70,000 complaints and due to shortage of staff we have put the checking of parliamentarians' assets at low priority," he added.

About foreign exchange companies scams, he said NAB and the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) had jointly initiated enquiries against 21 foreign exchange companies.