ISLAMABAD: Former president Asif Ali Zardari on Monday filed a petition in the Islamabad High Court seeking pre-arrest bail in a National Accountability Bureau case involving an apartment in an upscale New York neighbourhood purportedly owned by him.
The Pakistan People’s Party co-chairperson submitted the request in response to a notice served on him by the dirty money watchdog inquiring about details of the unit.
The watchdog had issued a notice, along with a questionnaire, to the former president on June 15, seeking details of the apartment in Belaire Condominiums — a high-rise condominium apartment building in Manhattan — located at 524 East 72nd Street.
In the petition, Zardari insisted that the notice is “baseless and the allegations made therein are based on malafide intentions so as to malign” him.
“It is respectfully submitted that the petitioner is not in the ownership of any property in New York including [the] apartment as of the date mentioned in the notice,” the petition read.
The petition further said the agency had issued several call-up notices to the PPP co-chief in different matters “to politically damage his reputation”, and added that all those notices were assailed at different forums including at the high court.
Zardari, it mentioned, was suffering from several ailments and his earlier confinement had made his medical condition worse and said that he was currently under the special care of doctors who were monitoring his health.
The petition nominated NAB chief retired Justice Javed Iqbal, director general and three others as respondents.
In December 2018, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf filed an application before the Election Commission of Pakistan in Karachi seeking Zardari’s disqualification for “concealing” the apartment. In a complaint, a PTI MP from Karachi, Khurram Sher Zaman, alleged Zardari owned the apartment but had not declared it in his nomination for the 2018 general elections in which he returned to the National Assembly.
“Because of this act of his, Mr Asif Ali Zardari under the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and Rules of the Election Commission of Pakistan, […] as per the past precedent, should be disqualified from holding public office under Article 62 (1)(f), as in my opinion, he ceases to be truthful and sagacious,” the application stated.
“This serious violation of the law needs to be examined by you since Mr Zardari is a former president of Pakistan and co-chairs one of the major political parties of this country.”
Another document that surfaced at the time showed one Mehreen Shah was granted the power of attorney for the condo unit by the former president.
