ISLAMABAD, Sept 4: An accountability court on Wednesday turned down the prosecution’s request to grant 15-day judicial remand of the jailed PPP leader, Asif Ali Zardari, in the custody of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in the assets case.

The deputy prosecutor general, Abdul Baseer Qureshi, during the hearing in the Pakistan Steels reference, moved an application before the accountability court with a request to allow arrest of Asif Zardari, saying “the NAB chairman already issued his arrest warrant on August 21 in the assets case.”

The prosecution stated that the assistant director of Federal Investigation Authority (FIA), Abdul Jalil Khan, was present in the courtroom to arrest Mr Zardari.

However, Mr Zardari and his counsel Farooq Naek objected to the prosecution’s request and submitted that the accountability court had no jurisdiction to grant the judicial custody of Mr Zardari to the NAB.

The counsel argued that the prosecution had never arrested Mr Zardari in the assets case despite the fact that the reference had been pending since 1998.

He said the prosecution intended to arrest his client so as to delay his release.

“The prosecution was impeding all the cases except the BMW reference for which the bail petition was coming up for hearing before the Lahore High Court, Rawalpindi bench, on Thursday.”

The counsel that the NAB had arrested Mr Zardari earlier in the same manner in December 2001 in BMW case when he was being released by the court. “The request to arrest Mr Zardari in the assets case clearly shows that the BMW was a false case.”

After hearing the arguments, the court refused to grant judicial remand and adjourned the hearing till Thursday.