Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan, right, and Bushra Bibi, his wife. (AP file photo)
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s anti-corruption court indicted jailed former prime minister
Imran Khan
and his wife, Bushra Bibi, in a
land graft case
on Tuesday.
The case of alleged corruption, known as
Al Qadir Trust case
, was filed against Khan and six others by the
National Accountability Bureau
(NAB), Pakistan’s anti-corruption watchdog, on Dec 1.
According to NAB officials, Khan and his wife had obtained cash and land worth billions of rupees from property tycoon Malik Riaz to build an educational institute, Al Qadir University, in return for giving legal cover to money identified and returned to Pakistan by UK’s crime agency but which was allegedly misused.
The land, authorities claim, was given in exchange for a favour to the property developer by using £190 million repatriated by Britain in a money laundering probe to pay fines levied by a court on the developer. According to Khan’s aides, the trust had received the land for philanthropic purposes. Riaz has denied any misconduct.
Earlier this morning, Bushra Bibi was brought for hearing to a prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi where the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) founder has been incarcerated. She has been living under house arrest at her husband’s sprawling residence in Bani Gala, Islamabad. Both were sentenced to 14 years in prison in a separate graft case.
Accountability court judge Nasir Javed Rana read out the chargesheet against the two. Both denied the charges. The court then summoned five witnesses for NAB at the next hearing on March 6.
Imran was arrested in the same case from the Islamabad high court premises on May 9, 2023. The arrest had triggered widespread protests and violent incidents that resulted in damage to government property and military assets. Two days later, the Supreme Court had declared his arrest illegal.
Earlier this month, Imran and his wife were sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment on charges that they had married before the completion of the mandatory iddat period after Bushra’s divorce from her first husband — the fourth sentence so far for Khan and the second for his wife.
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