[DAWN] ISLAMABAD: A total of 1,915 accused and their accomplices, including prominent politicians, prosecuted by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), have been acquitted by courts since the inception of the bureau in 1999.
According to documents of the Ministry of Law and Justice, of the 1,915 accused, 1,240 have been acquitted in Sindh, 314 in Punjab, 218 in Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
and 143 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
(KP).
The list contains the names of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
, his daughter Mariam Safdar, Punjab
1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots....
Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif
...Pak dynastic politician, brother of PM Nawaz Sharif, chief minister of Punjab...
, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto
... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in...
, PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari and his father Hakim Zardari, besides more than 30 politicians, including former chief ministers, federal and provincial ministers and politicians.
The document mentions the name of Finance Minister Ishaq Dar as an `approver' in the Hudaibia Paper Mills scam, in which all members of the Sharif family were acquitted.
Prominent politicians acquitted in different cases by accountability or high courts over the past 16 years are PML-N Senator Chaudhry Tanveer, Punjab PPP president Manzoor Wattoo, Minister for Defence Production Rana Tanveer Hussain, former Punjab minister Basharat Raja, Yousuf Talpur, Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, Jahangir Badar, Siraj Durrani and Islamuddin Sheikh of PPP and Khalid Kharal, Javed Hashmi, Riaz Fatiana, Liaquat Jatoi, Jam Mashooq Ali, Nawaz Khokhar and Anwar Saifullah Khan.
In July, NAB informed the Supreme Court that it was pursuing more than 150 major scams, involving about Rs568 billion acquired through financial and land allotment irregularities and abuse of power.
The list of pending cases also contains the names of big guns as respondents, including Prime Minister Sharif and his predecessors Yousuf Raza Gilani
... Pakistain's former prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics could be awe-inspiring ...
and Raja Pervez Ashraf, PML-Q leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Asif Ali Zardari, former federal and provincial ministers, senior government officials and individuals from banking and finance sectors.
When contacted, a NAB official said that he could not provide the number of convicted people but he could say that the conviction rate of those prosecuted by the bureau was good.
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