Karachi: A former petroleum minister and close aide of ex-Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari was on Friday charged along with five others for money laundering and fraud that caused Rs 462 billion loss to the national exchequer.
Asim Hussain and other accused were produced in an accountability court where Judge Saad Qureshi read out the charges against them. They all pleaded not guilty.
The court summoned the prosecution witnesses with direction to record their testimonies in the next hearing of the case on May 14.
Few months after Hussain was arrested by the paramilitary rangers, former President Zardari went abroad and has remained there since.
In references filed against Hussain, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) charged him with of misusing his authority for getting plots allotted fraudulently and encroaching upon state land for expansion of his Dr Ziauddin Hospital/Trust, illegal gains, kickbacks and money laundering.
Hussain has also been accused of receiving commissions from a fertiliser cartel for an "exploitative price hike".
Another charge related to "black marketing and fraud with the public" in the name of a charity hospital. The NAB said that Hussain while he was federal petroleum minister had deprived the state of Rupees 462.5bn from 2010 to 2013 Rupees 450 billion through the fertiliser scam, Rupees 9.5 billion through land fraud and Rupees 3 billion through money laundering.
