Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan, proper, along with his spouse Bushra Bibi, speaks to the media earlier than signing paperwork to submit surety bond over his bails in numerous instances, at an workplace of Lahore Excessive Courtroom in Lahore, Pakistan, on July 17, 2023.
Ok.M. Chaudary/AP
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Ok.M. Chaudary/AP
ISLAMABAD — A Pakistani courtroom 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 change for laundered cash when Khan was in energy.
Prosecutors say the businessman, Malik Riaz, was then allowed by Khan to pay fines that have 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 every one the costs in opposition to 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, based on officers. She had earlier served a jail sentence in one other graft case till she was freed on bail by a courtroom in October. She lately led a rally to demand her husband’s launch.
Faisal Chaudhry, a protection lawyer, mentioned the courtroom verdict could possibly be challenged within the superior courts.
Shortly after the announcement of the decision, lawmakers from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, celebration rallied exterior the parliament within the capital, Islamabad, saying the previous premier had been wrongly punished.
“This is a bogus case, and we will approach an appeals court against this decision,” mentioned Omar Ayub Khan, a senior celebration chief who isn’t associated to the previous premier.
Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in parliament in April 2022, had beforehand been convicted on fees 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. Underneath Pakistani legislation, he’s to serve the phrases concurrently — that means, the size of the longest of the sentences.
A few of Khan’s supporters have been additionally current exterior the Adiala jail within the metropolis of Rawalpindi, and so they chanted slogans in opposition to the federal government, demanding the discharge of their chief.
On Thursday, Data Minister Attaullah Tarar advised reporters in Islamabad that there was “irrefutable evidence” in opposition to 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 obtained the cash from to construct it.
The most recent growth got here a day after Khan’s PTI celebration 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 celebration leaders.
Sharif turned prime minister following the February 2024 election, which PTI claims was rigged.
