LONDON/OSLO: In a landmark legal victory, the Norwegian government has given a clean chit to Norwegian-Pakistani businessman Umar Farooq Zahoor by dismissing a 16-years-old alleged corruption case against him – citing a lack of sufficient evidence to prove corruption and wrongdoing.

The decision to dismiss the alleged corruption case against Zahoor has been made by Norway’s top prosecuting authority after establishing that there is not enough evidence against Zahoor either to prosecute him or to justify keeping the case file open because there is lack of evidence in the case, legal documents show.

Not only has the case been dropped altogether “due to the state of the evidence”, which has been found to be “insufficient”, but the prosecuting authority has also ordered Norwegian law enforcement agencies, including the police, to “take the necessary steps regarding any still-active wanted-person alerts/notices” in order to withdraw all outstanding notices and warrants, locally and internationally.

In recent months, Zahoor launched a legal case against senior Norwegian prosecutor Carl Graff Hartmann, alleging that he had conspired against him over the years in collusion with the right-wing Norwegian tabloid Verdens Gang (VG) by repeatedly targeting him on false grounds. Zahoor alleged, in particular, that Carl Graff Hartmann had repeatedly provided defamatory and false narratives to his contacts in the right-wing media to settle what Zahoor described as a personal enmity against him.

Zahoor had previously been wanted and charged in connection with the multi-million-kroner fraud against Nordea in 2010 – a charge he always denied and against which he launched several legal challenges to maintain his innocence and clear his name. He was accused of being one of the alleged principal figures behind the Nordea fraud, but Zahoor consistently denied any role in the fraud and maintained that the prosecution had no proof of his involvement.

He maintained that the banking case dated back to 2010, while Zahoor himself had not been to Norway since 2005. It was over the same case that Norwegian authorities sought his extradition, but the UAE government refused to comply with the request due to a lack of evidence against him.

According to the court documents, Norwegian law-enforcement authorities began investigating the case in 2010, with Zahoor becoming part of the investigation and cooperating with police through his lawyers. In 2012, Oslo Police closed the case on evidential grounds and recommended to the public prosecutor that the case against Zahoor be dismissed.

However, prosecutor Carl Graff Hartmann kept the file open for years and continued making statements to the media. After Zahoor recently launched legal proceedings accusing Hartmann of defamation and conspiring against him, Norwegian authorities referred the case to the chief prosecutor for review.

Within a week of receiving the file, the chief prosecutor decided this week to dismiss the case completely.

The same Oslo Police clearance letter, along with an investigation report by Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), formed the basis of a May 2023 decision by Lahore judicial magistrate Ghulam Murtaza Virk clearing Zahoor in two fraud and money-laundering cases registered against him in 2020.

Zahoor said in a statement issued through his Norwegian lawyer he was relieved that the high-profile fraud case against him has been quashed by the same Norwegian authority that built the case against him.

“I am thankful to the prosecutor who saw through the facts and dismissed the case, which was based on untruths.