PESHAWAR: Former provincial police officer (PPO) of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Malik Naveed, arrested on charges of receiving kickbacks in procurement of weapons and vehicles for the police department, was sent to prison on judicial remand by an accountability court here on Wednesday.

The judge Mr Wilyat Ali Ghandapur turned down request made by officials of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for remanding the suspect further into their custody. The judge directed that the suspect should be kept in prison and should be again produced after two weeks on Jan 29.

Barrister Zahoorul Haq and Abdul Lateef Afridi appeared for the suspect and opposed granting of further physical remand, contending that he had already remained in custody of NAB for 56 days and there was no justification available in extending his custody.

They said that Malik Naveed was suffering from heart ailment and on medical grounds he may not be remanded into further custody of NAB. Malik Naveed, also a former commandant of Frontier Constabulary, was arrested on Nov 20 and subsequently he was remanded into the custody of NAB for different durations of time.

During his previous production before the court, the NAB officials had sought his custody stating that he had already submitted an application for voluntary return of the ill-gotten money and that applica-tion had been under consideration of the NAB committee concerned. On that ground he was remanded in custody last time for five days.

A special prosecutor of NAB, Lajbar Khan, and investigation officer, Enayat Khan, said that another suspect in the case, Niaz Ali, had returned Rs20 million that proved that the case was based on facts. They contended that as the voluntarily return application of the suspect was pending and he had offered to return Rs80 million, therefore, NAB needed his further custody. They added that the suspect was accused of receiving Rs360 million from a private contractor, Arshid Majeed, in return of awarding him lucrative contracts in procurement of weapons and vehicles for police in 2009-10.

The former PPO was brought to the court amidst tight security and even journalists were not permitted to enter the courtroom.

Initially, in this case Arshid Majeed and a budget officer of police Javed Khan were arrested on Feb 21, 2013, however, the former was released on ball by the high court after he agreed to return Rs102 million voluntarily. Arshid Majeed recorded his statement on May 25, 2013, wherein he named several persons including Malik Naveed of receiving kickbacks from him for awarding him lucrative contracts.

Arshid Majeed, in his statement, had disclosed that payments to the tune of over Rs1 billion were made to several persons including Malik Naveed as kickbacks for getting lucrative contracts and cover-up of the issue.