ISLAMABAD: Ex-Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari sent a legal notice to former prime minister Imran Khan on Monday for making “fabricated, scandalous” allegations against the former of hatching a plot to assassinate him.

Zardari, Khan’s political rival and leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), served as Pakistan’s president from 2008 to 2013. Tensions between the two escalated last week when Khan, during a televised address, told his supporters Zardari had devised a plan “behind closed doors” to have him assassinated. 

Khan also maintained that Zardari was guilty of accumulating ill-gotten wealth and had paid “a terrorist group” to assassinate him. The allegations have been vehemently denied by PPP and Zardari.

Ousted via a parliamentary vote of confidence in April last year, Khan received gunshot wounds during an anti-government rally in Pakistan’s Wazirabad city in November 2022. He blamed Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, and a senior intelligence official for orchestrating the attack, without providing proof. The military and government both strongly rejected Khan’s allegations. 

On Monday, Zardari’s legal representative Farooq H. Naek sent an Rs10 billion notice to Khan for making “false, fabricated and scandalous remarks/statements” against the former president. “That through your baseless accusations of malicious and defamatory nature you have tried to defame our client nationally as well as internationally,” the notice read. 

The notice said Khan had tried to create a link between Zardari and militant organizations, reminding him that the former president’s wife, Pakistan’s first woman prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was also assassinated by militants. 

It said that while Khan had accused Zardari of accumulating wealth through ill-gotten means, the PPP leader had spent almost eight years in prison on “false, fabricated, trumped up and concocted cases” that were never proven against him. 

“You, through your malicious accusations have injured and defamed our client with ulterior motives to get undue benefit in current political situation of the country,” it said. 

Zardari demanded an unconditional apology from Khan within 14 days, stating that if Khan doesn’t comply, he would be compelled to take legal action against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman. The notice said Zardari would initiate legal proceedings against Khan in “the competent Courts of law and forums of Pakistan as well as of England, including but not limited to Suit for Damages for Rs.10,000,000,000/.”

The former prime minister has so far not responded to Zardari’s legal notice.