ISLAMABAD: The Accountability Court, on Saturday, recorded the statement of a prosecution witness, Imran Bashir, an expert from the Diamond and Jewellery industry and an employee of a Dubai-based company, who estimated the value of Graff jewellery set in the Toshakhana case against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder and former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi.
The witness while testifying before the Accountability Court judge Muhammad Bashir said that his company was approached by the Counsel General of Pakistan to estimate the value of the Graff jewellery set.
His company has assigned him the task of estimating the value of the Graff jewellery set, he said, adding that his company has directed him to find out the market value of the jewellery set. I estimated the value of the jewellery set after taking input from diamond dealers and jewellery outlets, he said.
He said that the estimated value of the graft jewellery set was $ 19.492 million. The report of the estimated value of the gifts was submitted to the Counsel General of Pakistan, he said.
Shahbaz Khosa, counsel for PTI founder Imran Khan conducted a cross-examination of the witness after he completed his statement. The witness said that Mohsin Habib had sent him the pictures for the estimation of jewellery set.
To another question, the witness said that he is working as a part-time salesman in his company. No payment has been made to him for the estimation of the jewellery set, he said, adding that his company pay him a monthly salary. He said that he did not know how much the Counsel General of Pakistan paid to his company for the estimation of the value of the Graff jewellery set.
He said that it was correct that he was not given any direction in writing for the estimation value of gifts. It is also correct that he does not have the authority letter of the company nor did he present it to the investigation officer (IO) of the case, he said, adding that it is correct he also does not have any authority letter of the company for appearing before the court.
When the counsel asked the witness that is it true that you had received a fabricated report from NAB and submitted to the Counsel General of Pakistan. The witness replied in negative.
During the hearing, the PTI founder objected to the recording of the statement of Syed Inam Ullah Shah, former PS to Imran Khan and chief security officer Bani Gala. During the hearing, Khan came to the rostrum and requested the court to record the statement of this witness under oath on holy Quran. The court did not record the statement of Inam Ullah Shah and decided to record his statement during the next hearing to be held on January 23.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
Comments
Comments are closed.