Court grants Imran Khan bail in £190mn reference

ISLAMABAD:

The Islamabad High Court has granted bail to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) former chairman Imran Khan in the £190 million reference.

The bail has been accepted against a surety bond of Rs1 million. Despite the acceptance of the bail plea, the former prime minister will remain in jail in other cases.

The bail plea of the ex-PTI chairman in the £190 million reference case has been accepted. IHC judges Chief Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Tariq Mahmood Jahangiri had reserved the verdict on the matter the previous day.

The backdrop of the £190 million reference against Imran Khan entails a corruption lawsuit initiated by Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

Read more: Security threats: hearing of £190mn reference postponed

The lawsuit alleges Imran Khan, along with his spouse Bushra Bibi and several others, of involvement in a corruption scheme.

The accusations encompass misuse of authority and unlawful disposal of state assets, purportedly entailing the misappropriation of funds transmitted by Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) to the Pakistani government under an agreement with a real estate magnate. The case has triggered various legal proceedings.

On Tuesday, Special Prosecutor of NAB, Amjad Pervez, began his arguments by adopting the stance that according to the United Nations Convention against Corruption, the property obtained through corruption should go to the state. The money was sent to the Supreme Court’s account to benefit Bahria Town and Malik Riaz, which was the money of corruption and should have come to the government of Pakistan.

He said that Malik Riaz and his family were involved in money laundering and had made an out-of-court settlement with the NCA. Justice Tariq Mahmood Jahangiri remarked that “you do not have any evidence or documents of this settlement, why are you talking about something for which you do not have evidence? Do you have any evidence of the out-of-court settlement? You should only talk about what you have evidence for.”

In this case, on February 27, Judge Nasir Javed Rana of the Accountability Court Islamabad, while conducting the hearing at Adiala Jail Rawalpindi, indicted Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi.

On Tuesday, during the hearing of the £190 million reference against Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi, statements of three witnesses were recorded in the accountability court, and cross-examination of two witnesses was completed. Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi were present in the Accountability Court.

Later, the court adjourned the hearing until May 15. In this reference, statements of a total of 30 witnesses have been recorded, and cross-examination of 19 has been completed.

It should be noted that in the £190 million NAB reference ‘Al-Qadir Trust Case,’ it is alleged that Imran Khan and his wife, during the PTI government, obtained billions of rupees and hundreds of kanals of land from Bahria Town Limited in exchange for legalizing Rs50 billion sent by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) to the government of Pakistan.

This case is related to the alleged illegal acquisition and construction of land for Al-Qadir University, in which Malik Riaz and his family gained illegal benefit from the recovery of £140 million through the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) in a money laundering case.

Imran Khan is also accused of misleading the cabinet by hiding facts related to the settlement, where the amount (£140 million) was received under the settlement agreement and was supposed to be deposited in the national treasury but was adjusted in the recovery of 450 billion case of Bahria Town Karachi.