 "Pakistan: Former PM Imran Khan likely to get bail in Al-Qadir Trust case on June 11, says top PTI leader")
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is expected to secure bail on June 11 in the Al-Qadir Trust case, according to a senior Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader, even as the party gears up for a fresh political battle under his leadership from behind bars.
The Islamabad High Court is scheduled to hear pleas seeking suspension of convictions handed to Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, in the high-profile case involving the alleged misappropriation of £190 million recovered by UK authorities from a Pakistani property tycoon. The case has become a central point in the ongoing legal troubles facing the PTI founder, who has been incarcerated at Adiala Jail since August 2023.
Speaking to ARY News, PTI chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan expressed confidence that Khan and his wife would receive relief when the court convenes next week. The hearing had previously been deferred at the request of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), which sought more time to finalise its arguments.
The Al-Qadir Trust case centres on allegations that the Khan government unlawfully facilitated the transfer of £190 million, originally frozen by Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA)—to a real estate developer’s liabilities in Pakistan. In return, a charitable trust set up by Khan and Bushra Bibi allegedly received a land donation from Bahria Town, the tycoon’s firm. Both Khan and his wife are named as the sole trustees.
Gohar told ARY News on Saturday that the PTI will collaborate with opposition parties to launch a movement, which will be led by the party’s patron-in-chief from jail.
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More ShortsHe urged the opposition parties to join PTI for the sake of the country’s survival and security and revealed that a strategy for the upcoming budget has been finalised. “The party will address a press conference on June 9 regarding it,” he said.
Earlier last month, Khan had said he would lead his party’s upcoming protest movement against the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) led coalition government at the Centre, from the prison.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister and a prominent leader of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf: party, Ali Amin Gandapur, earlier this week threatened to launch a full-scale movement for the cricketer-turned-politician’s release after Eid Al-Adha.
Khan, who faces multiple cases and has been convicted in a few of them, has repeatedly claimed the February 8 general elections of last year to have witnessed the ‘Mother of All Rigging.’ He has called his rivals the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) as “mandate thieves.” Rana Sanaullah, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs, while speaking with the media at his hometown of Faisalabad in Punjab on Saturday, urged the PTI to accept Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s offer of a meeting for negotiations and sit with the government to make amendments to the election laws.
Gohar claimed Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi, was being held in jail without any charges to pressure the PTI founder and claimed no deals will be made for the founder’s release.
He also dismissed rumors of internal rifts within PTI.
Some years ago, the National Crime Agency (NCA) of the United Kingdom agreed to a settlement worth 190 million pounds with the family of property tycoon Malik Riaz.
According to an earlier report in Dawn, the NCA, in August 2019, declared that it was granted freezing orders on eight bank accounts containing 100 million pounds, “suspected to have derived from bribery and corruption in an overseas nation.” The NCA said it had informed the then-government, run by Khan’s PTI. It is alleged that Khan asked Shehzad Akbar, his aide on accountability, to resolve the matter, who in turn, “settled” the case with the frozen funds belonging to the national treasury being adjusted against Bahria Town’s liability, the Dawn said.
Bahria Town Ltd, Malik’s real estate firm, was found to have illegally acquired thousands of acres of land on Karachi’s outskirts in the district of Malir. It had donated hundreds of acres of land to the Al-Qadir Trust, a non-profit that has only two trustees – Khan and Bushra Bibi.
With inputs from agencies
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