RAWALPINDI, April 3: The Rawalpindi Bench of Lahore High Court on Thursday acquitted former NWFP chief minister Sardar Mehtab Ahmad Khan Abbasi, clearing him of corruption charge.

Sardar Mehtab, arrested in December 1999, had been awarded 14 years’ rigorous imprisonment plus a fine of Rs20 million by an accountability court, sitting at the 16th-century Attock Fort.

His co-accused, Talha Ahmad, a trader from Karachi, has also been acquitted.

Sardar Mehtab, who came out of jail last year after getting bail on medical grounds, was elected a Senator from the NWFP on PML (N) ticket. He had been provisionally allowed to stand for the Senate. Had the punishment been upheld, he would have been out of the upper house.

The two-member appellate bench of the LHC, comprising Justice Mohammad Akhtar Shabbir and Justice Maulvi Anwarul Haq, in its short verdict, held that the prosecution failed to prove charge against the accused. A detailed judgment will be made available to the parties later.

Talha Ahmed, the co-accused, was sentenced to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment under section 10(b) and 9(a)(vi) of the NAB ordinance. The accountability court had held that Rs80 million should be recovered from the trader by selling his company assets.

The accountability court had released Abdul Ghafoor Judoon, the former NWFP food minister, who had turned an approver.

The NAB had accused Mehtab of misusing his official position in the purchase of 100,000 tons of red wheat from Karim Karobar at $151.57 a ton against the lowest bid of South Asia for soft white wheat at $122.80 a ton.

Mehtab, who was present in the court at the time of announcement of judgment, said the accountability of the NAB people, who had involved him in a false case, would be done in the court of Almighty Allah.

He said there was no justification for an institution whose only job was to target political opponents.