Pakistan FM appears before accountability court

Pakistan Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, a close aide of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif, appeared before an accountability court in Islamabad on Monday in connection with a corruption case filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

The NAB prosecution presented two new witnesses before the court in the seventh trial against the minister in a graft case in the Panama Papers scandal.

The first witness - Abdul Rehman Gondal, the manager of a private bank's parliament branch - provided details of the account held by Dar. The second witness - Masood Ghani, the operations manager in a private bank - later gave his testimony regarding Dar's bank account, the Dawn reported.

Dar's counsel Khawaja Haris cross-examined the witnesses and pointed out the differences between the bank documents presented in the court and the NAB. The court adjourned the hearing till October 30 and asked the second witness to appear with the original documents.

The court had indicted Dar, along with Nawaz Sharif's family, last month for owning assets "beyond known sources of income".