Three FRB suspects in retired Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa tax data breach were remanded by an Islamabad court.
The federal authorities began an investigation into the disclosure of Gen. Bajwa’s family’s tax information on November 21.
Before Judicial Magistrate Omer Shabbir, the Federal Investigative Agency (FIA) presented Shahzad Niaz, Arshad Ali Qureshi, and Mohammad Adeel Ashraf. Following the publication of government employees’ tax information on FactFocus on November 23, the prosecutor claimed that Qureshi had abandoned his cellphone on that date. Shahzad Niaz and Ashraf are accused of simultaneously accessing and extracting tax data.
The accused’ mobile phones were validated by the prosecution for use in forensic data retrieval.
The investigating officer had asked for the accused’s detention for five days. He testified in court that the co-accused had purchased the data from the accused Shahzad Niaz for cash. He further stated that the co-defendant had sold the journalist the data.
An investigation found that by giving Qureshi taxpayer details on cash payments made since 2018, Niaz “illegally aided Qureshi.” Sajid Aziz, in contrast, gave the cash to Qureshi.
The defendants were ordered physically detained by the FIA for five days in order to gather information about Sajid Aziz, as well as bank and Easypaisa data.
The judge said that rejecting physical remand would put an end to the investigation.
Up to December 24th, the FIA had three suspects.
