Pak FM Dar ordered to appear in court in graft case

A Pakistani accountability court today ordered embattled Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to appear in person on November 14 after he failed to appear before it in a graft case.
Dar did not appear in court as he was undergoing medical check-ups in London for heart complications, his lawyer Aysha Hamid told the court.
The case was filed against him by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in the light of the Supreme Court order of July 28 that disqualified Nawaz Sharif as prime minister in the Panama Papers scandal.
The NAB had registered three cases of corruption and money laundering against Sharif, his family members and Finance Minister Dar in the Islamabad Accountability Court, weeks after the Supreme Court order ousted the premier.

Judge Muhammad Bashir ordered Dar, 67, to appear at the next hearing on November 14 along with his surety provider and warned that the surety money bond of Rs 5 million would be confiscated if he failed to appear.
The NAB prosecutor pressed the court to issue a non- bailable arrest warrant for Dar but the court rejected the plea while maintaining the bailable arrest warrant.

The minister has so far appeared before the court seven times since the trial began. But he missed previous three consecutive hearings. He also missed the first hearing on September 20.
At the hearing on October 23, the court recorded statements of NAB's witnesses, including Abdul Rehman Gondal of Allied Bank and Masoodul Ghani of Habib Bank Limited, against Dar.

Earlier, three witnesses testified in the case, including Al-Baraka Bank senior vice-president Tariq Javed and Shahid Aziz of the National Investment Trust (NIT) asset management company.
Dar was indicted in September in the case in which he is accused of having assets not in accordance with his known sources of income.