|
IHC suspends Shoaib Shaikh's sentence in fake degree case
 [DAWN] The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday suspended Axact's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Shoaib Sheikh's 20-year jail term and granted him bail against surety bonds worth Rs500,000.In July, an Islamabad sessions court had convicted Sheikh and 22 others in the fake degree scam case and awarded 20 years imprisonment under different charges. The judge also imposed a fine of Rs1.3 million on each of the convicts. Sheikh and the others were nominated in a First Information Report (FIR) lodged against them on June 7, 2015 under Sections 419, 420, 468, 471, 473, 109/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 4 of Anti-Money Laundering Act 2010. Subsequently, Sheikh challenged his conviction before the Islamabad High Court. Shaikh's counsel Raja Rizwan Abbasi asked the court to suspend the sentence till the appeal against the trial court's decision in concluded. In his arguments, the lawyer pointed to what he called some grave legal mistakes in the decision. Justice Athar Minallah observed that there is no complainant in the case. "The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) says that hundreds of thousands of people were defrauded but not even a single victim lodged a complaint," he said. The judge also observed that the prosecution failed to prove that the degrees were fake. Posted by: Fred 2018-10-24 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=526058 |