ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Friday announced to file an appeal against the court verdict, declaring party founding chief Imran Khan and his spouse Bushra Bibi guilty in the £190m reference.
Addressing media in the federal capital, PTI stalwart and Leader of Opposition in National Assembly Omar Ayub said they would challenge the verdict in the higher courts.
Calling it a ‘Black Day’, Leader of Opposition in Senate Shibli Faraz said that superior courts would dismiss the “baseless” case against Imran.
Dismissing the notion that the former prime minister was involved in corrupt practices, Faraz reiterated that neither the national exchequer had been damaged nor had Khan and his wife received any benefit from Al-Qadir University.
PTI Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram told Geo News that the decision would be challenged in the Islamabad High Court.
He further clarified that this was a case meant for acquittal, emphasising that there was no “justification for a conviction”. Akram also asserted that a baseless case had been filed against the founder of PTI.
Khan’s lawyer Faisal Chaudhry, speaking to reporters outside Adiala jail, condemned “NAB’s political usage”, saying the accountability watchdog had become a tool in governments hands. “NAB’s investigation [in Al-Qadir Trust case] is flawed.”
The public prosecutor’s evidence neither contained any proof of monetary gains, crime proceeds, nor of financial corruption, he added.
Chaudhry claimed till date the prosecutor did not present, on record, a single case of money laundering, whether of UK court or Pakistan court, against the PTI founder.
He also made personal attacks on the judge, raising question about his honesty. “This is […] hand-picked judge was declared by the Supreme Court as not worthy of being appointed as a judge,” he said.
An accountability court in Islamabad — after delaying the verdict three times — convicted the PTI founder and his wife, Bushra Bibi, in the £190 million case.
Accountability Court Judge Nasir Javed Rana handed down a 14-year sentence to the PTI founder and a seven-year sentence to his wife, while also slapping heavy fines on them.
The PTI founder will have to pay a fine of Rs1 million and his wife has been slapped with a fine of Rs0.5 million. In case they fail to pay the fine, the ex-prime minister will serve six months more and Bushra three months.
The Al-Qadir Trust case, commonly known as the £190m case involved allegations that Imran and some others in 2019 adjusted Rs50 billion — amounting to £190 million at the time — sent by Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) to the Pakistani government during his tenure as the country’s prime minister.
