**NICL scam: ‘FIA was stopped from
filing appeal against Elahi’s acquittal’
**
ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Law has barred the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) from filing an appeal against the acquittal of Moonis Elahi in the multi-billion rupees National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) corruption case, according to a senior official of the agency.
In a testimony to the National Assembly Standing Committee on Commerce, FIA Additional Director General (DG) Mohammad Afzal Malik said: “The Law and Justice Department did not allow filing [of the] appeal while arguing that grounds for the appeal were weak”.
Moonis, Deputy Prime Minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi’s son, is the main accused in two separate cases, filed against him and two other accused for receiving Rs320 million in kickbacks through the purchase of properties worth billions of rupees at exorbitant rates.
In the past, political pundits have argued that one of the reasons why the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) joined the government was to save Moonis.
FIA Additional DG Malik said that during FIA’s investigations it had been established that Habib Wariach, the seller in the Lahore property case, had transferred Rs320 million to Moonis by opening two bank accounts on the names of the employees of Moonis. He said that the deputy premier’s son was acquitted after witnesses turned hostile and changed their statements in court.
The members of the standing committee observed that the FIA was under pressure by “higher authorities” in their desperate attempts to save the scion of a political family while Moonis’ “poor employees” were still under custody and were not even the main accused in the scam.
Since these disclosures were not enough to surprise the participants, **the NICL officials admitted that Ayaz Niazi – the principal accused and former chairman of the NICL – was still using the official car being run on taxpayers’ money. It was further revealed that the NICL is ready to offer the car to Niazi on book value and all other privileges that a chairman earns.
“A chairman who has paralysed the institution, himself fell from grace, brought so much infamy to the government, how can he avail these privileges**,” asked Chairman of the Standing Committee on Commerce Khurram Dastgir.
Full Report
Now is the time for a mini-NRO for pardoning all scions in the larger national interest. Be it a junior Elahi, junior Gilani, junior Sharif or junior Zardari, they are born to rule us and rule the way they like. Has any one benefited more from the country than our leaders? But we are still dying to lick their shoes and falsify everthing in their love which is disgustingly blind. We neither feel slaved nor ashamed. Sometimes I think that we really deserve them.