ISLAMABAD - A local court Monday sent Tariq Mehmood, an accused allegedly involved in the video leak controversy surrounding accountability court judge Mohammad Arshad Malik, to jail on 14-day judicial remand.

Civil judge Shaista Kundi turned down the FIA request to extend his physical remand and ordered to send him to jail.

The investigation agency produced the accused before the court after the expiry of his three-day physical remand and requested the court to extend his physical custody.

However, the court rejected its request and sent him to jail directing the FIA to produce the accused before the court on August 5.

Tariq was named in the affidavit submitted by Judge Arshad Malik in the IHC. Judge Malik — who had in December last year sentenced Nawaz to seven years in jail in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills corruption reference and acquitted him in the Flagship Investment case — has been at the centre of controversy since July 6, when PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz alleged that he had been “blackmailed” into giving the verdict against Nawaz Sharif.

Mahmood has been accused by Malik of showing him a “secretly recorded manipulated immoral video [showing him] in a compromising position” which was later used by Nawaz Sharif’s long-time supporter Nasir Butt to blackmail the judge into saying that he had been “pressured” to issue the Al Azizia verdict against the former premier.

Judge Arshad Malik in an affidavit submitted to the IHC had claimed that he was offered Rs500 million by the son of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif to resign on the pretext that he could “no longer deal with the guilt of having convicted the former premier under duress and without evidence”.

The judge further claimed that he was blackmailed after being shown the video and told to record an audio message that he delivered the verdicts to appease the “ruling elite” under an immense pressure and that substantial evidence was not available against the former prime minister.