Chaudhry Parvez Elahi rearrested by NAB in bribery case after release from Adiala Jail

RAWALPINDI, August 14 (SABAH): National Accountability Bureau (NAB) rearrested Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) President and former chief minister Punjab Chaudhry Parvez Elahi on Monday for allegedly receiving bribes over development project contracts, shortly after he was released from Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail.

The PTI president was first arrested on June 1 in connection with a corruption case. He was discharged in said case the very next day, only to be arrested in another.

In mid-July, Elahi — ordered to be released from Lahore’s Camp Jail where he was incarcerated in a money laundering case — was detained under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) ordinance for 30 days.

Upon the completion of the MPO detention on Monday, the Lahore NAB team took Elahi into custody from the Adiala Jail in a case of allegedly receiving bribes/kickbacks, his lawyer Amir Saeed Rawn confirmed to Dawn.com.

The lawyer termed the arrest political and said Elahi’s legal team would challenge it in the Lahore High Court (LHC).

The Lahore NAB then presented Elahi in a Rawalpindi sessions court, where NAB prosecutors Raffay Malik and Sardar Tahir Ayub sought his two-day transitory remand so that the PTI president could be shifted to Lahore.

However, the court only granted a day’s transitory remand to the Lahore NAB and directed Investigation Officer Najam Abbas to present Elahi before the relevant court “in safe custody” by today (Tuesday).

According to the court order, an arrest warrant for the PTI leader in the said inquiry was issued on August 11.

A video shared by the PTI before Elahi was rearrested shows him saying, “If they are gaining happiness in this manner (by arresting me), then let them.”

Elahi is one of the co-accused in a case of receiving bribes/kickbacks in exchange for getting the “contracts of road schemes of Gujrat Highways Division awarded to favourite/hand-picked contractors”.

Other co-accused include his son “Chaudhry Moonis Elahi, Mahr Azmat Hayat and others”. The case alleges that Elahi and Moonis were handed over the kickbacks received from Azmat directly as well as through Imtiaz Ali Shah, their accountant.

It further alleges that the co-accused were “involved in causing loss to the government exchequer to the tune of millions of rupees against receipt of commission/kickbacks and committed offences of corruption and corrupt practices” under Section 9(a) of the NAB ordinance, 1999.

At the outset of the hearing on Monday, the NAB prosecutors informed Judge Khalid Hayat that Elahi was unable to use the stairs due to his age, at which the court allowed Elahi to mark his attendance from the car.

Upon requesting a two-day transitory remand, Judge Hayat noted that it was “only a few hours’ drive to Lahore” from Rawalpindi. “Then why do you want a remand for two days?” he asked.

“The investigation that you have to conduct, you can do so after obtaining [Elahi’s] physical remand from the relevant court,” the judge observed. “I am only supposed to grant the transitory remand.”

At this, the court granted the Lahore NAB one-day transitory remand of the former Punjab chief minister and directed the watchdog to present him in the relevant court today (Tuesday).