Younis Habib

Younis Habib ( – 24 April 2019) was a Pakistani banker who founded the now-defunct Mehran Bank and was a central figure in the Mehran Bank scandal and the related Asghar Khan case, two of the largest political-financial scandals in the history of Pakistan. He admitted before the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2012 that, at the direction of the military and intelligence establishment, he had arranged the disbursement of funds to politicians of the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) to defeat the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) led by Benazir Bhutto in the 1990 Pakistani general election.

Career Early career Habib began his career in 1963 as a clerk at Habib Bank Limited (HBL), then Pakistan's largest commercial bank, and rose through the ranks over nearly three decades to become its zonal chief for Sindh and eventually its provincial head, retiring from HBL in 1991. In 1991, the State Bank of Pakistan received a report from HBL alleging that Habib's banking practices as Sindh zonal chief had exposed the bank to potential losses of between Rs. 4 billion and Rs. 6 billion, although no immediate disciplinary action was taken.

Mehran Bank In November 1991, with the support of the then Chief Minister of Sindh Jam Sadiq Ali, Habib obtained a banking licence to establish Mehran Bank, of which he became the founding chief operating officer (COO). Habib, along with Beg and Durrani, was named as a respondent.

After more than two decades in which he largely lived out of the public eye, Habib was summoned by the Supreme Court in March 2012 to record his statement. Before the court, Habib admitted that he had arranged Rs. 350–400 million from Habib Bank Limited at the direction of senior military officials, and that the funds were distributed among politicians opposing the PPP.

On 19 October 2012, the Supreme Court issued a 141-page verdict declaring that the Inter-Services Intelligence had unlawfully manipulated the 1990 election and ordering legal proceedings against Beg, Durrani and others. The Chief Justice noted that Rs. 140 million had been disbursed through Habib and asked who bore responsibility for the operation, observing that prima facie it had been carried out at the behest of the presidency.

Imprisonment Habib served three years of his ten-year sentence before being released. In 2006, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) announced that Habib had agreed to settle Rs. 1.6 billion of his outstanding liability through the sale of his benami property, a plot in the Blue Area of Islamabad that was sold to the National Logistics Cell for Rs. 2.2 billion, with the proceeds transferred to NBP to help resolve the loan defaults of the defunct Mehran Bank.