IMRAN KHAN
KARACHI: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has closed the money laundering enquiry against former managing director of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), the Enquiry Officer, through his circle In-charge sent the CF Report with recommendation to the Director office.
Enquiry was registered in FIA Karachi Circle in 2018 agains ex MD PIA Mohammad Aijaz Haroon who latter filed a petition in Sindh High Court, in which, the high court was requested to declare the FIA inquiry as illegal and restrain the agency from causing harassment and making arrests in the impugned inquiry.
According to the FIA report, submitted in SHC, it had initiated the enquiry against Mohammad Aijaz Haroon as per the law and there was sufficient material available on record which showed the accumulation of assets beyond source of income of the petitioner.
The enquiry officer (EO) submitted that the petitioner was a suspect in a case registered at the FIA corporate crime circle for misusing his power and also the suspect was named in a National Accountability Bureau’s reference in Rawalpindi; hence, the aspect of obtaining funds from criminal means could not be ruled out.
meanwhile, the counsel argued that the impugned inquiry was politically motivated as the petitioner was associated with a member of Parliament and leader of political party and persons desiring to suffer damage upon the said member of Parliament were invoking all means possible to do so.
On Wednesday, the court was informed by the Deputy Attorney General that the FIA had closed the inquiry against the petitioner and such recommendations had been sent to the head office for approval. A division bench, after taking the statement of the DAG on record, disposed of the petition.
It is pertinent to mention that in October 2020, the FIA’s Corporate Crime Circle, Karachi had arrested former PIA MD Aijaz Haroon and former Human Resource director Mohammad Haneef Pathan on charges of illegal appointment of Salim Sayani as deputy managing director (DMD) in PIA in 2009, on a monthly salary of $20,000 along with other perks and privileges that caused huge loss to the national exchequer.
Earlier, in 2019, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had arrested Aijaz Haroon, who was also chairman of the ‘Overseas Cooperative Society’, for allegedly selling a dozen of plots to fake allottees and using fake bank accounts to launder Rs144m for Omni Group.
