ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) challenged in the Islamabad High Court on Wednesday the acquittal of PPP co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari in two corruption references.

A local accountability court had on Dec 12 exonerated the former president in the Ursus tractors and ARY Gold references af ter accepting his pleas under Section 265-K of the Criminal Procedure Code. Section 265-K empowers a judge to acquit an accused when there is insufficient evidence against him.

Mr Zardari has been facing these references since 1997. National Accountability Bureau Prosecutor General Waqas Qadeer Dar said in the appeal that the accountability court had not provided the bureau an opportunity to lay evidence against the accused.

He said the court relied on the evidence which the prosecution had produced for the trial of the co-accused when Mr Zardari was the president. At that time he could not be tried because of immunity he enjoyed under the Constitution.