RAWALPINDI Rejecting the National Accountability Bureau (NAB)s plea that foreign accused could not be summoned by the court in the Cotecna Reference, the Accountability Court on Monday once again summoned the directors of the Swiss company allegedly involved in the corruption reference and directed them to appear before the court. Judge of the court, Najmul Hassan Najam, summoned the foreign directors including N.J.H. Marsat, Vice-President; William J. Popple, General Manager; John Brodharst, Manager; Ian Durham, Bently and Chris Clark, Liaison Officers of Cotecna company; to appear in the court to face the corruption allegations. After issuing the orders, the court adjourned the hearing till October 29 for further proceedings. President Asif Ali Zardari is also one of the main accused in the reference but criminal proceedings could not be initiated against him since he enjoys immunity in this reference under article 184-A of the Constitution. Earlier, Ministry of Foreign Affairs submitted a report about the execution of summons to the foreign accused and told the court that the Accountability Court had no jurisdiction to summon the six foreign accused in the Cotecna Reference filed by NAB. The Ministry submitted this report after the AC judge directed Additional Prosecutor General (APG) NAB to inform the court after getting details from the Foreign Ministry about the execution of summons to the foreign accused. The sources told TheNation that in this regard, the Foreign Ministry had written to the Ministry of Law and Justice seeking its opinion that how the court summons could be executed. In response to this, the Ministry of Law and Justice gave its opinion saying that the court had no jurisdiction to summon foreign accused under the law. The report submitted by the Foreign Ministry and prepared by Ministry of Law and Justice stated that this court could not summon the six foreign accused, who are the directors of an offshore company allegedly owned by President Asif Ali Zardari. The report says that the court could not issue summons to the foreign accused under section 4 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and section 4 of National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999. Therefore, it further said that summons should not be issued against him. Earlier, the same court had summoned the six foreign accused in the Cotecna Reference filed by the NAB and directed them to appear before the court. In the Cotecna reference, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband President Asif Ali Zardari were also accused of taking six percent of the total revenue of pre-shipment for awarding a contract to Cotecna. The reference alleged that they received $11.8m in kickbacks for the $131m contract to supervise Pakistans customs service. The commission was paid to an offshore company allegedly owned by Asif Ali Zardari. Nusrat Bhutto and AR Siddiqui were co-accused in the case. Benazir Bhuttos name was deleted from the case after her assassination in December 27, 2007. In the same reference, the judge had also summoned PPPs former chairperson Nusrat Bhutto to appear before the court but the Chief Justice of Pakistan took suo moto notice of the issuance of the fresh summons of Nusrat Bhutto and halted the court for issuing the same against her.