KARACHI, Sept 25 (INP): A banking court resumed hearing a money laundering case against Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Asif Ali Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur on Tuesday.

As the hearing went under way, the former president and his sister were present in court. Others accused in the case including Omni Group chairman Anwar Majeed and his three sons also appeared before the court.

The court issued non-bailable arrest warrants for five absconders yet again and adjourned the hearing till October 16.

The case was initially registered in 2015 against former Pakistan Stock Exchange chairman Hussain Lawai, who is widely believed to be close to former president Zardari.

[timed-content-server show="09/26/2018 01:00 Asia/Karachi"]Later, seven individuals, including Zardari and Talpur, were said to have been found involved in using those accounts for suspicious transactions which totaled Rs35 billion. The accounts were allegedly used to channel funds received through kickbacks. Last month, Lawai and banker Taha Raza were detained and booked for allegedly facilitating the opening of 29 ‘fake’ accounts through which suspicious transactions were made to different companies, including M/s Zardari Group. Talpur had also obtained an interim pre-arrest bail in the case in the sum of Rs2 million. Both the siblings are facing corruption charges relating to fake accounts and fictitious bank transactions worth Rs35 billion. Both Zardari and Talpur face allegations that they had illegally channeled funds through the said accounts in connivance with the chief executive officers of major banks. In August, the siblings had also appeared before a joint investigation team of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in Islamabad to record their statement in the multi-billion rupee money laundering and fake bank accounts case open against them. INP/AK[/timed-content-server]