Supreme Court indicts Hamid Saeed Kazmi

A Special Judge of Rawalpindi Court has indicted former minister for religious affairs, Hamid Saeed Kazmi and two others in the infamous Hajj corruption case.

The trail court on Wednesday indicted Kazmi along with former additional secretary to ministry of religious affairs Raja Aftabul Islam and former director-general Hajj Rao Shakeel, summoning10 witnesses of the scandal.

Special Judge Central Mian Khalid Shabbir presided over the hearing in which a charge sheet was presented to the accused. However, he pleaded not guilty saying that they will prove the judgment wrong.

Talking to the media outside the court, the former minister for religious affairs has claimed that the FIR lodged in 2010 had trapped him in the scandal, denying any involvement in the case.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) officials informed the court during the hearing that they were under pressure, he claimed.

Commenting about his acquittal plea, he observed, “He wasn’t given relief according to the law for which he was disappointed”. The list of witnesses in the case did not have the name of former minister Azam Swati, on whose statement a suo moto action was taken against him, he noted.

Swati had pursued the Hajj corruption case in the Supreme Court relentlessly, which ultimately forced the government to sack former religious affairs minister.

The former minister asserted, “Swati’s claims were proven wrong last year in January in the Supreme Court – the same person who brought me here. His name is not there among the witnesses”.

He continued that he had filed a case against Swati for compensation of the damages made to him, saying that the court did not have any grounds to frame charges against him and to indict him and that he will challenge the indictment.

He remarked “When the prosecution says that they have no evidence against me, then why did they indict me? You see where I stand”.

Rejecting Kazmi’s acquittal plea under the clause 265KK on May 25, the judge Khalid Shabir said that the plea was premature.

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Posted by Faisal Farooq on May 30 2012. Filed under Pakistan, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.