ISLAMABAD, April 3: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday dismissed an intra-court appeal seeking quashment of warrant issued for the arrest of an alleged frontman of Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani's son, who is charged with selling 9,000 kilogrammes of ephedrine to narcotics smugglers.
A civil judge of Islamabad on November 14, 2011, had issued the arrest warrant of Tauqeer Ali Khan, the alleged frontman of Ali Musa Gilani, on the request of Riaz Ali, an assistant director of the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF).
Though the ANF in its challan submitted to the court did not name the PM's son, at a number of stages the ANF investigating officer said Khan was mediating among different stakeholders on behalf of a political figure.
The Supreme Court in its order on the chemical scam case on March 31, 2012, observed: “ANF issued notices to Ali Musa Gilani on March 12, 2012, for recording of his evidence as according to ANF official material has come on record that Tauqeer Ali Khan used to claim himself to be private secretary of Ali Musa Gilani."
Following the issuance of his arrest warrant, Khan filed a petition with the IHC for setting aside the civil judge's order.
His counsel Mohammad Ramzan Chaudhry informed the court in December last year that the ANF could not produce even a single evidence against his client but the civil judge issued warrant of his arrest in order to compel him to participate in the probe.
The single bench of Justice Mohammad Azim Khan Afridi, on December 19, 2011, temporarily suspended the arrest warrant but directed Khan to appear before the investigating officer in 15 days. He also warned him that his failure to appear before the IO would result in reactivation of the arrest warrant.
The petitioner filed an appeal with the IHC against the single bench decision. The division bench, comprising Justice Mohammad Anwar Khan Kasi and Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, after hearing the plea of the petitioner's counsel observed: “Every citizen is under obligation to cooperate with the investigation officer during investigation of any case.” The order of the bench said the petitioner had been given enough time to participate in the investigation; therefore, his grievances were not based on legal grounds. The IHC directed the petitioner to approach the trial court for any remedy.
According to the challan submitted by the ANF, Khan was the intermediary in the ephedrine scandal. The scam came to limelight in March 2011, when the then federal minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin while responding to a point of order assured the National Assembly that a thorough investigation would be held into the alleged illegal allocation of ephedrine to two pharmaceutical companies - Berlex and Danas.
The ANF was assigned the task in October last year which started a formal probe on October 10, 2011. According to the findings of ANF, the former director general health Rasheed Juma illegally allowed the allocation. Another former director general health, Asad Hafeez, and the then secretary health Khushnood Lashari also allowed the allocation and sale of the chemical to the companies.
The challan said Khan was a frequent visitor to the office of secretary health and was behind all the alleged illegal dealings in ephedrine. The chemical was procured from Alpha Chemicals and delivered to one Zari Mohammad, who was neither a licensed drug dealer nor worked for any of the pharmaceutical companies.
The challan disclosed that Danas Pharmaceutical had claimed that it produced over 80 million tablets of meton from the ephedrine but could not produce any evidence to prove the claim. The company's claim that it distributed the tablets in Gilgit and Skardu also turned out to be wrong as its chemists in these areas mentioned in the list provided by the company denied of receiving any tablet from it.
Likewise, Berlex also claimed of distributing 210 million tablets of meton but it also failed to prove it.