NAB provides details of Dar’s assets to anti-graft tribunal

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Friday provided details of assets belonging to former Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to an anti-graft tribunal.
The tribunal is looking into the NAB’s request to auction Dar’s movable and immovable properties since he fled the country last October after the bureau filed a case against him for allegedly accumulating assets beyond his known sources of income.
He had left Pakistan on a special plane to attend a regional economic conference, but instead of returning, he flew to the UK. He has not returned to Pakistan since.
An accountability court declared Dar an absconder in the case last December due to his failure to stand trial.
He contested Senate elections earlier this year and secured another six-year term in office. But when he did not heed a request by Pakistani authorities to return and face the charges against him, the Supreme Court suspended his Senate membership and the Interior Ministry issued a warrant against him.
While Dar continues to insist that he is not in good health, a video of him roaming the streets of London in August went viral on social media, angering his political rivals.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice Saqib Nisar expressed his displeasure at the state’s inability to bring an absconder to justice, and instructed relevant authorities to extradite him from Britain.
Subsequently, officials sent a letter to the passport issuance authority to cancel the travel documents of Dar and his wife Tabassum Ishaq.
The NAB on Thursday asked Judge Muhammad Bashir, who also heard the corruption reference against former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, to auction the houses, plots and vehicles owned by Dar and his dependents.
The bureau believes these properties are worth 830 million Pakistani rupees ($6.69 million), and may fetch more if auctioned.

NAB provides details of Dar’s assets to anti-graft tribunal