ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan will appeal against his conviction in a land graft case in a high court this week, his lawyer Salman Akram Raja confirmed days after the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder was handed a 14-year jail sentence in the case.
An accountability court in Pakistan’s capital on Friday handed Khan a 14-year jail sentence and slapped his third wife with a seven-year imprisonment term after finding them both guilty of receiving land as a bribe from a real estate tycoon.
The couple say that the Al-Qadir Trust, set up by Khan and Bushra Khan in 2018 when he was still in office, was established to impart religious education. Pakistani authorities, however, say the trust was a front for the couple to receive valuable land as a bribe from real estate developer Malik Riaz Hussain, who is one of Pakistan’s richest and most powerful businessmen.
Hussain, like Khan and his wife, both deny any wrongdoing in the case. Khan’s party responded to the verdict last week by saying it lacked “any solid foundation and is bound to collapse.”
“If [the appeal] is not filed tomorrow [Monday] then it will be filed the day after [Tuesday],” Raja told ARY News, a private news channel, on Sunday night. “And obviously, we will file a request with the appeal to dismiss this verdict and that the punishment should also be dismissed,” he added.
Raja hoped the high court would listen to the appeal “soon” and issue its verdict within the next few weeks. He said after the high court’s verdict, whichever party disagrees with the decision will then appeal against its decision at the Supreme Court.
He did not specify which high court the party intends to file Khan’s appeal in.
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.
Raja reiterated that Khan and his wife had not personally benefitted from the amount repatriated to Pakistan, saying that it had been used to pay Hussain’s fines as a result of a mutual understanding between the real estate tycoon and the UK’s National Crime Agency.
“Our stance is clear: that this decision is against the law and logic,” he said. “And cannot under any circumstances stand after an appeal.”
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.
The announcement of the controversial verdict was delayed three times, most recently last Monday, as the government holds reconciliation talks with Khan’s PTI party.
