NAB secures nine-day remand for PTI’s Aleem Khan

ISLAMABAD: An accountability court on Thursday granted the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) the authority to remand former provincial minister Aleem Khan in custody for nine days.
A day earlier, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) leader Khan — who is also known as one of the party’s major financiers — had been arrested by the watchdog for owning assets beyond his known sources of income and assets.
The PTI leader will be part of probes to investigate his involvement in the offshore company Hexam Investment Overseas Ltd, the Park View Housing Society, River Age Housing Society, and Multan Road. Shortly after his arrest on Wednesday, Khan had resigned from his post as senior minister for Punjab.
A while later, NAB released a statement saying that the former minister was arrested in light of the Panama scandal investigation, and that he had “established multiple companies with the purpose of real estate business and invested millions of rupees”.
“He [Khan] bought more than 900 kanals land in different mauzas of Lahore in the name of his company M/s A&A Pvt Ltd, and also paid advance for [an] additional 600 kanals of land [that] he could not account for the sources of the said investments,” the statement added.
The bureau accused Khan of misusing his authority as a member of the Punjab Assembly and Minister for Information Technology by indulging in corrupt practices when he served as secretary for the Parkview Housing Society project.
According to NAB, Khan has also accumulated assets beyond his means in the UK and the UAE. “Said offshore companies acquired assets of extensive value which are beyond known sources of income of the accused,” the statement added.
It stated that it was necessary to arrest the minister in order to unearth any evidence he may have as “it is likely that [the] accused may tamper with the prosecution evidence through coercion, criminal inducement, and criminal intimidation.”
The PTI leader will be remanded in custody until February 15.