A Pakistani high court is scheduled to hear a plea filed by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, today, challenging their convictions in the Al Qadir Trust case.
An Islamabad accountability court in January last year sentenced the 73-year-old Imran Khan to 14 years in prison and Bushra Bibi to seven years in the corruption case led by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Pakistan’s anti-graft watchdog. The couple has challenged the conviction in the Islamabad High Court. The hearing was earlier scheduled for April 22 but was cancelled due to the closure of the Red Zone in view of expected Iran-US negotiations.
The 190 million pound case relates to allegations linked to the Al-Qadir Trust, a welfare organisation that runs a university outside Islamabad. It is alleged that the trust was used as a front to receive land worth millions of dollars from a real estate tycoon.
According to NAB, the donations were made in exchange for the former premier’s government using repatriated funds from the United Kingdom to pay fines on behalf of the businessman, instead of depositing the amount into the national exchequer. Imran Khan has denied the allegations. He has said neither he nor his wife received any financial benefit from the trust or related transactions.
