Federal Minister for Commerce Makhdoom Amin Fahim.—File photo

LAHORE: Federal Minister for Commerce Makhdoom Amin Fahim has denied that he had spoken to President Asif Ali Zardari to express his annoyance over the reinstatement of FIA's additional director general, Zafar Qureshi, or had asked for his removal.

Mr Qureshi, who was earlier tasked to investigate the NICL scam, was suspended by the government soon after his reinstatement on Supreme Court's orders on the charge of violating government's service rules.

Responding to a news story published in Dawn entitled, 'Elements other than Moonis behind my suspension: Qureshi', the minister said in a statement that “a portion of the news report attributed to him is fabricated, concocted and unfounded having not even an iota of truth in it”.

Contradicting the report, the minister said that to the best of his knowledge there had not been such a meeting with the president or “even he did not convey such a message to the president through any other means”.