ISLAMABAD: An accountability court in Pakistan on Friday sentenced former prime minister Imran Khan to 14 years in prison after he was convicted along with his wife of receiving land as a bribe from a real-estate tycoon, Khan’s party said.
The case involved a charitable entity, Al-Qadir Trust, set up by Khan and his third wife Bushra Khan in 2018 when he was still in office. The court sentenced Khan’s wife to seven years in prison in the case.
Pakistani authorities say the trust was a front for the couple to receive valuable land as a bribe from a real estate developer, Malik Riaz Hussain, who is one of Pakistan’s richest and most powerful businessmen. Hussain, like Khan and Bushra, denies any wrongdoing.
In response to Friday’s verdict, Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said while it awaited a detailed judgment, the case against Khan and his wife “lacks any solid foundation and is bound to collapse.”
“All evidence and witness testimonies confirm that there has been no mismanagement or wrongdoing,” the PTI said in a statement. “Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi are merely trustees with no further involvement in the matter.”
The announcement of the verdict in the Al-Qadir Trust case had already been postponed thrice before, drawing criticism from Khan’s party.
Khan, while speaking to journalists inside the Adyala jail in Rawalpindi where Judge Nasir Javed Rana announced the decision, said the verdict had “tarnished the reputation” of the country’s judiciary.
“In this case, neither I benefited nor the government lost [anything]. I don’t want any relief, will face all cases,” he said. “My wife is a housewife, who has nothing to do with this phony case. Wife was given sentence to infuriate me.”
Pakistan’s government said the country’s judiciary was independent to make decisions and Khan had failed to offer evidence to prove his innocence.
“This case has run for a period of more than a year, testimonies were recorded in it. The Tehreek-e-Insaf founder had the right to present evidence in his defense... he did not present witnesses in defense,” Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar said.
“Now, he has the right to file an appeal.”
Information Minister Attaullah Tarar called the Al-Qadir Trust case the “biggest mega corruption case” in Pakistan’s history, saying that Khan’s party fought it on “political basis.”
“The defense counsel fought this case politically. He did not fight the case on merit, based on evidence, and it has also been written in the verdict that the defense counsel could neither present evidence of [Khan and his wife’s] innocence, nor he could give a satisfactory response to the prosecution’s evidence,” he said.
“This case was fought on political basis, in media.”
Authorities say the Al-Qadir Trust scheme originated with 190 million pounds repatriated to Pakistan in 2019 by Britain after Hussain forfeited cash and assets to settle a British probe into whether they were proceeds of crime. Instead of putting it in Pakistan’s treasury, Khan’s government is accused of using the money to pay fines levied by a court against Hussain for illegal acquisition of government lands at below-market value for development in Karachi.
Khan, who has been in jail since August 2023 and faces a slew of legal cases, says all charges against him are politically motivated and being backed by his political rivals led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the country’s all-powerful military. Both deny the allegations.
