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Anwar Saifullah vows to move court against NAB

* Denies submitting relief application under NRO, claims political victimisation

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Former petroleum minister Anwar Saifullah Khan has vowed to sue the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) authorities for defamation by including his name in the list of National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) beneficiaries.

He said this at a press conference held outside the National Press Club. He claimed that NAB authorities were intentionally trying to damage his reputation.

Saifullah who is a member of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) NWFP denied submitting any application for seeking relief under the NRO.

He asked the government to form a national truth and reconciliation commission to address all politically motivated cases against politicians. He said six cases had been registered against him for misuse of authority, however he had been acquitted in all of the cases.

"I was the first politician from NWFP who was arrested by the authorities after General Musharraf took over in 1999. Later, I was told that I had been taken into custody under cases registered by Farooq Leghari's regime. When I told them that I was awarded bail in all those cases, a new case was registered to keep me in detention," he added.

"I was charged for providing employment to the unemployed youth from all the four provinces from BPS 1-14 under PPP policy of more employment opportunities for the poor and I am proud of what I did for the people from underprivileged classes. However, not a single case of corruption was registered against me," he said.

He said he had faced the trial and was also kept in jail for a year and a half although he had been acquitted in all the cases.

The NAB authorities later went into appeals which were still pending until April 2008 but they withdrew those appeals after the NRO was promulgated. He said the Ministry of Law should have checked the cases against politicians rather than making the list of NRO beneficiaries public like that.

He said he had suffered the brunt of politically motivated cases for 10 years but had won all of them. He regretted that NAB had tainted his reputation by putting his name on the NRO beneficiaries list.

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