ISLAMABAD: An accountability court in Islamabad on Monday rejected the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) request for extending former prime minister Imran Khan’s physical remand in the £190 million case.
The court instead, sent the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) chairman on a 14-day judicial remand.
Judge Muhammad Bashir of the Islamabad Accountability Court-I presided over the hearing of the corruption case, with the primary accused Imran and his wife Bushra Bibi present during the hearing held at Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail.
Imran’s sisters, Aleema Khanum and Noreen Khanum, were also present during the hearing.
In the previous hearing, the judge had instructed NAB to conclude its investigation and present a report today. On Sunday, a team from NAB interrogated the former premier at the Adiala jail for 13 hours.
Strict security measures were implemented within and around the jail premises in preparation for the hearing on Monday.
The £190 million (approximately Rs60 billion) settlement case pertains to the money of a property tycoon being laundered and caught by the UK authorities during Imran’s government in 2019. The UK government had informed the Pakistani authorities regarding the money being caught.
The May 9 arrest of the ex-prime minister came in this case for the first time.
Addressing a press conference regarding Imran’s arrest in the case at the time, then interior minister Rana Sanaullah said that as per law, the amount belonged to the Pakistani nation and should have been deposited in the national exchequer. “Instead [the then adviser to the prime minister] Shahzad Akbar acting as a front-man, formed the Al-Qadir Trust under a deal executed by him,” he claimed.
The minister said some 458-kanal of land in Sohawa and another 240-kanal in Bani Gala were registered in the name of Al-Qadir Trust.
Sanaullah said some seven to eight months ago, he had provided details of the two properties and had challenged the PTI chief to clarify if Al-Qadir Trust was not established by Imran himself to hide his corruption.
He further said the PTI chief and his wife Bushra Bibi were the only two trustees of the trust.
He said the 240-kanal of land in Bani Gala, worth around Rs5-7 billion, was registered in the name of Farah Gogi, a close friend of Imran Khan’s wife, while Akbar had also taken Rs2 billion for his services.
He said instead of depositing Rs60 billion into the national treasury, the amount landed in the bank account of the Supreme Court, where the accused property tycoon was under trial. The amount was, in fact, returned to the accused in a complex manner to hoodwink the masses, he added.
