Pakistan ex-PM Imran Khan, wife Bushra Bibi, sentenced to 14 years in jail in land corruption case

The court on Friday convicted former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, in the 190 milllion pound Al-Qadir Trust case with the PTI founder being sentenced to 14 years in prison while seven year jail term has been handed over to his wife, Dawn reported. 

The verdict, delayed three times previously, was announced by Judge Nasir Javed Rana in a makeshift courtroom at Adiala Jail. The court asked Imran Khan and his wife to pay a fine of amounting to Pakistani Rupees (PKR) 1million and PKR 500,000, respectively. 

Failure to pay the fines would cause six months in jail. The judge announced the verdict amid tight security outside Adiala Jail. Following the announcement of the verdict, Bushra Bibi was arrested from the courtroom. 

The couple was indicted in the case on February 27 last year, shortly after the elections were held on February 8. Before the hearing, PTI chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, while speaking to reporters outside Adiala Jail, had said, "You can guess the injustice that have occurred over the last two years." 

He said, "If a fair decision is made, Imran and Bushra will be acquitted." The case alleges that Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi obtained billions of rupees and land worth hundreds of kanals from Bahria Town Ltd for legalising PKR 50 billion that was identified and returned to Pakistan by the UK during the PTI government, Dawn reported. 

On December 23, when the verdict was supposed to be announced, an Islamabad accountability court postponed the verdict in the case till January 6 due to winter vacations. On January 6, the verdict was not announced as Judge Nasir Javed Rana, who has been hearing the case, was on leave. 

During the hearing on January 13, the judge said that Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi's absence in the accountability court at the Adiala Jail was the reason for the delay in announcing the verdict. In 2023, PTI founder was arrested in various legal claims, which he has termed "politically motivated." 

In 2024, he was acquitted in the cypher and Iddat cases. However, he was charged in the Toshakhana 2 case.In December 2023, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had registered a corruption case against Imran Khan and seven others, including his wife, in relation to the Al-Qadir University Trust, Dawn reported. 

The case filed by NAB alleged that Imran Khan, who is currently in prison, played a "pivotal role in the illicit transfer of funds meant for the state of Pakistan into an account designated for the payment of land by Bahria Town, Karachi." It claimed that despite given multiple opportunities to share information, the accused intentionally did not provide information on one pretext or another.

The suspects in the case include property tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain and his son Ahmed Ali Riaz, Mirza Shehzad Akbar, and Zulfi Bukhari. However, instead of joining the investigation, they absconded and were subsequently declared proclaimed offenders (PO), Dawn reported. Bushra Bibi's close friend Farhat Shahzadi and Ziaul Mustafa Nasim, a legal expert for the PTI government's Assets Recovery Unit, were also declared POs. Subsequently, the properties of all six accused had been frozen.

According to the case, Riaz's son transferred 240 kanals of land to Shahzadi, while Bukhari obtained land under a trust, which NAB stated did not exist at the time of the transfer. According to the prosecution, the trust was formed only after the adjustment of 190 million pound, raising doubts regarding its purpose and legitimacy. 

In July 2024, Pervez Khattak, a PTI leader back then who left the party in 2023 after the May 9 riots, said in court, that he also attended the meeting in December 2019, where then-accountability adviser Mirza Shahzad Akbar presented a confidential deed in a sealed envelope for cabinet approval.

Khattak said that when he asked details regarding the document, Akbar said that it was an agreement between the Pakistani government and UK's National Crime Agency for the refund of crime proceeds, as per the report. 

Days later, Imran Khan's then-principal secretary, Azam Khan, testified that Akbar brought a note to ask for Imran Khan's approval to present the confidential deed in the cabinet meeting. Pakistan's then-minister of defence production, Zubaida Jalal, in the court, said that ministers were "kept in the dark" on the transfer of "crime proceeds" to Malik Riaz. 

(This story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from ANI)