Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency on Tuesday registered a case against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leaders, including its chairman, Imran Khan, in the prohibited funding case.
The first information report (FIR) was lodged at the FIA’s banking circle police station. In addition to Imran Khan, Sardar Azhar Tariq, Tariq Shafi, and Younis Aamir Kiani have also been named in the FIR. In the FIR, the probe agency has alleged that Abraaj Group, a capital market company, had transferred USD 210,000 to the PTI account in the branch of a bank situated at Jinnah Avenue in Islamabad.
In addition, the party received more financing from two bank accounts of Wotan Cricket Club, according to the FIR. The probe agency said that the manager of the private bank also helped FIA in investigating the questionable transactions.
The FIR also mentioned the manager of the same bank branch had also been nominated in the case. It added that there were 12 currency transaction reports and suspicious transaction reports that had to be reported by the bank officials to the concerned authorities, but they failed to do so.
The FIR came a day after the Islamabad High Court (IHC) issued a notice to the FIA in the prohibited funding case after Imran Khan’s party asked the institution to stop the agency from the investigation.
The FIA has time and again summoned PTI leaders for questioning. However, not all of them have shown up.
On October 10, a district court in Lahore sent PTI leader Hamid Zaman on a 14-day judicial remand in the prohibited funding case.
The FIA had registered a case against Zaman, a trustee of the Insaf Trust, over prohibited party funding.
The ECP decided to issue a show-cause notice to the PTI to explain why the commission should not seize the funds it received.
Notably, Akbar S Babar, the man who blew the lid off the scam involving the inflow of dubious foreign funds into Imran Khan’s political outfit Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), formally approached the FIA to initiate a probe against the PTI.
Babar told the FIA that the PTI’s financial board in 2011 illegally authorised four employees of the party’s central secretariat to collect donations in their personal accounts from within Pakistan and abroad.