ISLAMABAD — A Pakistani court docket on Friday sentenced the nation’s already-imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his spouse to 14 and 7 years in jail after discovering them responsible of corruption, officers and his lawyer mentioned.
It is yet one more blow for the previous premier who has been behind the bars since 2023.
The couple are accused of accepting a present of land from an actual property tycoon in trade for laundered cash when Khan was in energy.
Prosecutors say the businessman, Malik Riaz, was then allowed by Khan to pay fines that had been imposed on him in one other case from the identical laundered cash of 190 million British kilos ($240 million) that was returned to Pakistan by British authorities in 2022 to deposit to the nationwide exchequer.
Khan has denied wrongdoing and insisted since his arrest in 2023 that each one the costs towards him are a plot by rivals to maintain him from returning to workplace.
Bibi was taken into custody by jail officers after the announcement of the decision, in line with officers. She had earlier served a jail sentence in one other graft case till she was freed on bail by a court docket in October. She just lately led a rally to demand her husband’s launch.
Faisal Chaudhry, a protection lawyer, mentioned the court docket verdict may very well be challenged within the superior courts.
Shortly after the announcement of the decision, lawmakers from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, get together rallied exterior the parliament within the capital, Islamabad, saying the previous premier had been wrongly punished.
“It is a bogus case, and we’ll method an appeals court docket towards this resolution,” mentioned Omar Ayub Khan, a senior get together chief who will not be associated to the previous premier.
Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in parliament in April 2022, had beforehand been convicted on costs of corruption, revealing official secrets and techniques and violating marriage legal guidelines in three separate verdicts and sentenced to 10, 14 and 7 years respectively. Beneath Pakistani regulation, he’s to serve the phrases concurrently — that means, the size of the longest of the sentences.
A few of Khan’s supporters had been additionally current exterior the Adiala jail within the metropolis of Rawalpindi, they usually chanted slogans towards the federal government, demanding the discharge of their chief.
On Thursday, Data Minister Attaullah Tarar instructed reporters in Islamabad that there was “irrefutable proof” towards Khan and his spouse within the “mega corruption scandal.” Tarar mentioned that Khan even didn’t inform his personal Cupboard members in regards to the cash that was returned to Pakistan by Britain.
Tarar additionally claimed that Khan constructed a brand new sprawling home within the jap metropolis of Lahore after giving advantages to the enterprise tycoon, and that he was unable to show that from the place he received the cash from to construct it.
The newest growth got here a day after Khan’s PTI get together held an important spherical of talks with representatives of the federal government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to demand the discharge of all political detainees, together with Khan and different get together leaders.
Sharif grew to become prime minister following the February 2024 election, which PTI claims was rigged.
