ISLAMABAD: Accountability Court (AC) on Monday indicted former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and former finance minister Miftah Ismail in LNG case.

As per details, the court indicted accused of the case and handed over the charge sheet; however, former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi pleaded not guilty.

The accountability court also summoned witnesses to record their statement on next hearing.

Abbasi, who served as the PM from August 1, 2017 to May 31, 2018, after the disqualification of Nawaz Sharif , has been accused of awarding the LNG Terminal-1 contract in a non-transparent way.

NAB claimed that from 2013 to 2017, unexplained deposits of Rs1.4 billion and Rs1.2 billion were made to Abbasi and his son’s bank accounts.

Abbasi has claimed that he is being politically victimised by NAB. He hasn’t submitted his formal reply in the case as the reference is still being evaluated.

On August 5, Abbasi was indicted in the illegal Pakistan State Oil appointments case.

Abbasi has been accused of illegally appointing Sheikh Imranul Haq as the managing director of PSO and Yaqoob Sattar as the deputy managing director (finance) while he was serving as the minister of petroleum and natural resources from June 7, 2013 to July 28, 2017.

According to Haq’s LinkedIn page, he served on the post from 2015 to 2018. NAB has claimed that Haq received a salary of Rs4.95 million every month, while Sattar made Rs2.7 million per month. Their appointments caused a loss of Rs1.38 billion to the national exchequer.

NAB said that Haq had no experience in the field of oil marketing and was appointed on the basis of favouritism. The bureau claims that the appointment violated all the laws and rules set by the Supreme Court for managing directors and chief executive officers of public sector enterprises.

The PML-N leader, however, pleaded not guilty in the case. NNI