Lack Of Evidence: Norway Gives Clean Chit To Umar Farooq Zahoor In Corruption Case
Umer Jamshaid Published August 21, 2026 | 06:41 PM
Three years after a Lahore magistrate cleared him, Umar Farooq Zahoor has now been cleared at source. Norway's top prosecuting authority has dismissed the 16-year-old corruption case against the Norwegian-Pakistani businessman, citing a lack of sufficient evidence to prove corruption and wrongdoing.
For Pakistani courts, this finding is not new. In May 2023, Lahore judicial magistrate Ghulam Murtaza Virk cleared Zahoor in two fraud and money-laundering cases registered against him in 2020 during the PTI government, relying on an Oslo Police clearance letter and an investigation report by Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency.
The FIA had informed the court that its investigation found no evidence establishing Zahoor's involvement in fraud, money laundering or corruption. The Oslo Police letter confirmed Norwegian investigators lacked sufficient evidence to prosecute him.
These Pakistani cases followed complaints by his former wife, Sophia Mirza. After a bitter divorce, Mirza alleged that Zahoor was involved in bank fraud in Norway in 2010 and a separate alleged fraud in Bern, Switzerland, in 2004.
The Norwegian case at the root of it all concerned a multi-million kroner fraud against the bank Nordea in 2010. Zahoor was accused of being one of the principal figures behind it—a charge he always denied, launching several legal challenges to clear his name. He argued the prosecution had no proof, and noted he had not been to Norway since 2005. Norwegian authorities sought his extradition over the same case. The UAE refused to comply, also citing a lack of evidence.
According to court documents, the investigation began in 2010, and Zahoor cooperated with police through his lawyers. In 2012, Oslo Police closed the case on evidential grounds and recommended to the public prosecutor that the case be dismissed. Instead, the prosecutor kept the file open for years and continued making statements to the media.
The matter reached a head only after Zahoor sued the prosecutor himself, accusing him of defamation and conspiring against him in collusion with the right-wing tabloid Verdens Gang. Zahoor alleged that the prosecutor had repeatedly provided defamatory and false narratives to his contacts in the right-wing media to settle what he described as a personal enmity.
Norwegian authorities referred the case to the chief prosecutor. Within a week of receiving the file, the chief prosecutor decided this week to dismiss it completely.