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ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has summoned the political secretary of former president Asif Ali Zardari over money laundering charges.
Former MNA Rukhsana Bangash has been asked to appear before NAB’s Rawalpindi chapter at 12PM on October 19 along with a money trail and international and domestic bank accounts.
She will be questioned in a money laundering case. According to the NAB, Bangash had bought $284,000 from the open market and is also involved in transferring $343,000 abroad.
Bangash is a former member of the National Assembly who was elected to the reserved seats for women first in 2002 and in 2008. She hails from the Rawalpindi Divison in Punjab and her father Mohammad Aslam was a federal secretary.
Bangash has served Zardari as a political secretary since the 1990s. However, she came into the limelight after 2008 when Zardari become the president of Pakistan. After Zardari’s term ended in 2013, he was summoned by various accountability courts in NAB cases. Bangash has accompanied him on almost every court appearance over the years.
The NAB approved a probe against her in 2002 after first deciding to interrogate her in the fake accounts case in 2019. The anti-graft body also announced a probe against her son Umar Manzoor.
The move comes on a day when an accountability court issued a written verdict dismissing Zardari’s plea for relief under the amended National Accountability Ordinance (NAO).
Earlier this week, an Islamabad accountability court rejected the plea filed by the former president seeking his acquittal in the Rs8.3 billion suspicious transaction case. The PPP co-chairman had moved the acquittal plea on the basis of the recent amendments made to the country’s accountability law.
