Rawalpindi - An accountability court yesterday recorded the statement of a key witness of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in illegal assets case against former President Asif Ali Zardari.
Madina Munawara, former legal consultant of NAB, appeared before Accountability Court and testified that she had signed the seizure memo, consisting of 400 pages, obtained from Switzerland and other countries in the assets reference case against Zardari. The judge issued notices to two NAB witnesses who translated the seizure memo documents from French into English to record their statements on January 14, 2016.
Madina Munawara in her statement said that the record of assets of Zardari was brought from different countries through mutual legal assistance (MLA) of NAB. She said that the memo was to be handed over to the investigation officer of the case and another NAB officer Ahmed Jawad Mirza. She said that she only signed the documents.
“I did not study the seizure memo in detail,” she told the court.
She said that the handing and taking over of the documents did not take place before her by the NAB. She said that she did not know when the documents were received by the NAB.
Zardari’s lawyers Farooq H Naik and Tabreez while raising objections on the statement of prosecution witness said that the court did not have original documents that were brought from abroad. They said that under the law, the court could not rely on photo copies of the original documents.
NAB Additional Prosecutor General Khalid Ishaq said that the documents were brought from abroad in form of a seizure memo. He said that the documents presented before the court were certified documents.Farooq H Naik, while talking to The Nation, said that the reference against former President Asif Ali Zardari had been pending since 2001 before the court. He said that some four to five NAB witnesses were remaining to record their statements in the case. Naik said that he hoped the court would soon decide the case without further delay.