ISLAMABAD - The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Thursday arrested Axact Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Bol TV Co-Chairman Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh on charges bribing a judge of the lower judiciary of Islamabad in exchange for getting acquittal in a fake degree case.
The Anti-Corruption Circle of FIA Islamabad took Shaikh into its custody in connection with investigation of a case registered against him, the agency said in a statement. “We have started a further probe after the arrest,” it added. Before the statement of FIA, Bol TV reported that Shaikh was abducted from Islamabad International Airport by some unidentified persons. It said that he did not come out of the airport when a TV team went there to receive him. The opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) strongly reacted over the arrest of the owner of Bol TV network and condemned the FIA action. PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry in a statement demanded immediate release of Shaikh and said that this was another effort to suppress the media and stifle its voice. FIA registered a first information report (FIR) against the businessman turned media owner Shaikh on allegations of giving Rs 5 million bribe to then additional district and sessions judge (ADSJ) of Islamabad Pervaizul Qadir Memon for getting acquittal in the fake degree case. The case was registered under the anti-bribery law and the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) on the request of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) registrar. The former judge Memon was also nominated in the FIR, according to the FIA. According to details, the agency had summoned the Axact CEO last month in connection with the bribe case but he did not appear before the probe team. Axact, a Pakistan-based software company owned by Shaikh, first came into the limelight in 2015 when New York Times broke a story that the firm had allegedly earned millions of dollars for selling fake degrees and diplomas worldwide through non-existent online universities and schools.
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