On Friday, Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan sentenced to 14 years prison by a local court in a land corruption case related to the Al-Qadir Trust, ARY News reported.
Imran’s wife Bushra Bibi has also been sentenced for 7 years in prison.
An anti-graft court delivered the verdict in the case, the largest in terms of financial wrongdoing faced by Khan, in a prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, where Khan has been in jail since August 2023.
The Anti-corruption court’s Judge Nasir Javed Rana, declared the verdict on January 13 after it had been postponed thrice due to various reasons.
In an improvised court set up in Adila jail, the judge rendered the decision.
In December 2023, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) filed the case against Imran Khan (72), his wife Bushra Bibi (50) and six others, accusing them of causing a loss to the tune of 190 million (PRs50 billion) to the national kitty.
However, Khan and Bibi are only charged as all of others, including real estate magnate, were abroad.
What Is The Al-Qadir Trust?
The case revolves around claims that PRs50 billion that the UK’s National Crime Agency remitted to Pakistan as part of a settlement with a real estate magnate was misused.
Imran and Bibi are accused of accepting a gift of land from a property tycoon in exchange for laundered money when Former PM Khan was in power.
According to the prosecution, Khan then permitted the businessman, Malik Raiz, to use the same 190 million British pounds ($240 million) is laundered funds that were returned to Pakistan by British authorities in 2022 to be deposited into the national exchequer to pay fines that had been imposed on him in a different case.
Allegedly, the businessmen who assisted Bibi and Khan in establishing a university had the money diverted for his own personal gain.
Bibi is charged with taking advantage of this settlement as a trustee of the Al-Qadir Trust, including by obtaining 458 kanals of land for Jhelum’s Al-Qadir University.
Since his arrest in 2023, Khan has denied any wrongdoing and maintained that all of the accusations against him are the result of a plan by rivals to prevent him from running for government again.
In April 2022, a no-confidence vote in parliament deposed the lawmaker who had previously played cricket. In three different verdicts, he was found guilty of corruption, disclosing public secrets, and breaking marital rules. He was given sentences of 10, 14, and 7 years, respectively. He must serve the period of the longest sentence concurrently, as required by Pakistani law.
Read Also: Cabinet Approved 8th Pay Commission For Central Govt Employees
