On Tuesday, Imran Khan, founder of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), applied for bail in the corruption cases involving the Toshakhana and £190 million at the Islamabad High Court (IHC) in Islamabad.
In the applications, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the investigating officer, and the NAB director general are cited as respondents.
We requested bail until the trial was over and a final decision was made, and for each case, we submitted a separate application.
Allegations of “politically motivated” and “rooted in animosity” prosecution are made against him in the application. In his plea, Imran cites the position of Aftab Sultan, the former chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), who, despite being pressured, had opposed the idea of fabricating politically motivated cases.
In all instances, the accountability court denied bail to Imran after his arrest. Imran and Bushra were accused of exploiting the state’s gift repository, Toshakhana, in a reference filed last year by NAB.
The PTI had already rejected the Toshakhana reference that had been brought against the party’s founder. According to the previous ruling party, the case is “devoid of merit” and “a concocted fabrication.”
The lawyer representing the PTI founder cross-examined Imran Masih, the primary witness for the NAB, last week. In a statement released on January 21, the party asserted that the reference has been debunked due to the witness’s testimony in court, rendering it unfounded.
While cross-examining Masih, Imran’s lawyer Shehbaz Khosa allegedly deconstructed the entire case. This is according to the PTI. The party asserted that NAB built the entire case around Masih’s answers to questions about Toshakhana’s jewellery that were supplied to him.
The party said that Masih does not have the proper training to evaluate jewelry, and that he is also unfamiliar with the acronym “IGI,” which is associated with the diamond grading certificate in question. Not only that, not only does he not have the proper paperwork for his business, but not even the owner knows who he is.
The witness did not provide any written documentation concerning jewelry shops’ market studies or appraisals, according to PTI. In addition, the salesman lacked the official business letter that would have allowed him to set prices and testify in court.
The gifts that were examined in NAB’s reference were not subjected to machine examination; instead, photographic evidence was used, as highlighted in the statement. It is worth mentioning that the diamonds were recorded by Imran Masih in grams, even though carats are the conventional unit of measurement for diamond weight.
