ISLAMABAD: Former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday said funds obtained by his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party were not illegal, accusing the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and its head of being biased against him.
This week, Pakistan’s top election body ruled on an 8-year-old case against the PTI, saying the party received millions of dollars in illegal funds from foreign countries including the United States, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, and Australia. The party denies any wrongdoing.
The ECP’s verdict could lead to a ban on Khan and his PTI which rose to prominence on an anti-corruption drive.
The former premier was addressing hundreds of PTI supporters via video link. Khan’s supporters had gathered at F-9 park in Islamabad after the government said it would not allow Khan to enter the Red Zone. The area is home to many Western embassies, the Supreme Court and government ministries.
Khan spoke about donations his party received from Arif Naqvi, the founder of the collapsed Dubai-based private-equity firm The Abraaj Group. In 2019, Naqvi was charged with conspiracy and fraud as prosecutors claimed he had defrauded investors and stolen their money.
“There was nothing illegal, nothing unconstitutional in this,” Khan said, speaking about donations from Naqvi. “He collected the funds and through his company, sent it to us. In 2012, it was legal to receive funds from foreign companies, as per law. The law that prohibited funding from [foreign] companies was introduced in 2017,” he added.
Khan said his party, like political parties around the world, had collected funds from fundraising events. The former premier said the ECP had been directed by the judiciary to hear the funding cases of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) at the same time as it heard the PTI’s case.
“But the ECP did not hear their cases and neither would it,” he said. “Because the day people find out how these parties collect funds, they will be shocked.”
Khan was prime minister from 2018 until April this year when he was forced to step down after losing a parliamentary vote of no-confidence, which he alleges was the result of a US conspiracy. The United States denies this.
Since then, Khan has been rallying his supporters to press for a new election, which new Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his coalition government have rejected.