LAHORE: A city magistrate on Saturday remanded a leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Hamid Zaman in two-day physical custody of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in the prohibited funding case against the party.

The magistrate observed that recovery of the documents mentioned by the prosecution was necessary for the completion of the investigation. Therefore, he granted two-day physical remand of the suspect with a directive to the FIA to produce him again on October 10.

The FIA officials had produced Mr Zaman before the magistrate and sought a 14-day physical remand.

An assistant director of FIA told the magistrate that the suspect’s custody was required because a trust deed and other vital proofs of transactions needed to be recovered from him.

He said that ledgers were always prepared regarding a trust property and accounts were maintained manually or digitally, but the suspect had not produced the ledgers and counterfoils of the cheques issued by him to the Insaf Trust.

Zaman’s counsel argued that the case was registered in the light of an observation made by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in its judgement issued on June 21, 2022 that the suspect transferred prohibited funds to Insaf Trust.

However, he claimed that the suspect rightly transferred the funds and the same were rightly used. The counsel said that Mr Zaman was not a signatory to the cheques through which the funds were transferred.

He further said that the bank account mentioned in the FIR had no relevance whatsoever with the judgement of the ECP. He said the suspect was already cooperating with the investigation agency and had not concealed anything about the case.

He said the trust deed was a registered document, which was available in the office of the sub-registrar. The record regarding the bank transactions is also available from the concerned banks, he added. The counsel asked the court to discharge his client in the case.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022