On Friday, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) filed a reference in the £190 million settlement case. This made former Prime Minister Imran Khan an official suspect in the case.
In this case, eight names have been put forward. Along with Imran, there is his wife Bushra Bibi, her friend Farhat Shahzadi aka Farah Gogi, Zulfi Bukhari, the leader of the PTI, Shahzad Akbar, who used to be the accountability boss, and Barrister Zia-ul-Mustafa Naseem.
The reference comes as the investigation into graft comes to an end. The court has sent the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader on judicial remand in the case.
Judge Muhammad Bashir of the accountability court turned down NAB’s request to keep Imran in jail longer for the case earlier this week, on November 27, 2023.
Instead, the court “remanded” the PTI leader in jail for 14 days.
At the last hearing, on November 24, 2023, the judge told NAB to finish its probe and give a report.
The case
The settlement case for £190 million (about Rs60 billion) is about a property tycoon’s money being laundered and found by the UK government in 2019 while Imran was in power. The UK government told the Pakistani government that the money had been found.
This was the first time that someone was arrested in this case, on May 9.
Rana Sanaullah, who was interior minister at the time, told a news conference about Imran’s arrest in the case that the money legally belonged to the Pakistani people and should have been put in the national exchequer. “Instead, Shahzad Akbar, who was the prime minister’s adviser at the time and acted as a go-between, set up the Al-Qadir Trust as part of a deal he made,” he said.
The minister said that the Al-Qadir Trust owned 458 kanals of land in Sohawa and 240 kanals of land in Bani Gala.
Sanaullah said that seven to eight months ago, he gave the PTI head information about the two properties and asked him to explain if Imran did not set up the Al-Qadir Trust to hide his corruption.
He also said that the only people who owned shares in the trust were the PTI leader and his wife, Bushra Bibi.
He said that the 240-kanal plot of land in Bani Gala, which was worth about Rs5-7 billion, was registered in the name of Farah Gogi, who is close with Imran Khan’s wife. Akbar had also been paid Rs2 billion for his services.
He said that the Rs60 billion didn’t go into the national budget, but into the bank account of the Supreme Court, where the accused property tycoon was being tried. He also said that the money was actually returned to the accused in a complicated way to trick everyone.
