RAWALPINDI, Sept 26 (INP): Axact CEO Shoaib Sheikh, who was arrested on Tuesday night, was shifted to Adiala jail in Rawalpindi today, while Shoaib’s close aide, Nigel Brian Rabellow, was arrested from New Islamabad Airport earlier today.

Sources said Sheikh was arrested in connection with Axact fake degree mill case.

He will not be produced before a court today, they added.

A close aide of Axact CEO Shoaib Sheikh, Nigel Brian Rabellow, was arrested from New Islamabad Airport earlier today.

[timed-content-server show="09/27/2018 01:00 Asia/Karachi"]The man was fleeing to Qatar through a private airline when immigration officers at the airport noticed that his passport was blacklisted. He was then handed over to the Anti Human Trafficking and Smuggling Cell, airport officials said. The arrested man is wanted by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in two cases including the Axact fake degree mill. In July this year, Sheikh and 22 others were sentenced by a district and sessions court to 20 years in prison in total and fined Rs1.3 million each in the case. Sheikh and others were sentenced to three years each under sections 419 and 420 of Pakistan Penal Code, and fined Rs0.3 million each. They were also sentenced to 7 years each under sections 468 and 471, and fined Rs1 million each. All penalties will be applied together under section 382 of the Pakistan Penal Code. The court also acquitted three accused – Aisha Shoaib Sheikh, Col (R) Jamil Ahmed and Lt Col (R) Muhammad Younas – giving them benefit of doubt. Failure to pay fines under sections 419, 420 and 468 will lead to extension of six months in their jail term on each count. The trial court judge had earlier acquitted Axact CEO and other accused in the case. Additional district and sessions judge Pervaizul Qadir Memon had confessed to receiving Rs5 million for acquitting Shoaib Sheikh in the case. The Axact scandal surfaced in May 2015, when The New York Times published a report claiming the company sold fake diplomas and degrees online through hundreds of fictitious schools, making “tens of millions of dollars annually”. The FIA had also filed an appeal with the Islamabad High Court (IHC) against the trial court's order acquitting all the accused in the case. The IHC had then declared the acquittal of Sheikh and others void. It had ordered the sessions court to against listen to the final arguments and announce a verdict in the case. INP/AJ[/timed-content-server]