Rawalpindi: The repeatedly postponed verdict in the £190 million case against PTI founder Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi will be delivered on Monday (tomorrow), the former prime minister’s lawyer confirmed on Sunday.
Accountability Court judge Nasir Javed Rana will deliver the reserved decision in the high-profile case at 11 am in the temporary court set up in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail.
PTI founder’s lawyer Khalid Yousaf Chaudhry confirmed the development citing judicial staff, while the prosecution team of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is also said to have been informed.
The verdict was earlier scheduled to be delivered on the 6th of this month. However, it was postponed as the judge was on vacation.
This was the second time that the verdict in the Al-Qadir Trust case was reserved on December 18, which was postponed to December 23, 2024.
NAB has accused the former prime minister along with his wife Bushra and others of causing a loss of 190 million pounds to the national exchequer through the settlement between the PTI government and the property tycoon.
The said case is part of the plethora of legal challenges facing the PTI founder, who has been behind bars for over a year after being convicted in Tosha Khana Case-I.
‘Justice will prevail’
Ahead of the verdict, Defense Minister Khawaja Asif expressed hope that “justice will prevail” as the accountability court is scheduled to deliver its verdict tomorrow.
Addressing a press conference in Sialkot earlier today, Asif said allegations against past rulers continued to be leveled but what happened during the PTI regime was “unprecedented”.
He asked the national media to investigate whether Al-Qadir is a trust university or not. He added that we hope that the verdict will be delivered tomorrow and justice will be served.
‘Default Decision’
Reacting to Asif’s press conference, PTI leader Asad Qaiser asserted that the statements of government representatives showed that they were aware of the ‘predecided decision’ in the Al Qadir Trust case.
“The whole world knows that the Al-Qadir Trust is a philanthropic institution,” Qaiser said in a statement today.
Defending the jailed founder of PTI, he said that it is a non-profit organization from which the former prime minister did not take any personal benefit.
He alleged that ‘there was neither a transparent trial nor any solid evidence against the PTI founder in this case’. The former National Assembly Speaker called it a “political witch hunt”.
He further said that justice cannot be expected when the rulers politicize the Supreme Court to get the desired decisions.
Case review
The anti-corruption watchdog had filed a reference against Khan, Bushra and others in December 2023 over the alleged settlement.
According to the charges in the case, Khan and the other accused allegedly stole 50 billion rupees from the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) to the Pakistani government as part of a deal with a property tycoon – at the time £ 190 million adjusted.
After that, the then prime minister got his cabinet to approve the settlement with the UK Crime Agency on 3 December 2019, without disclosing details of the secret deal.
It was decided that the money would be deposited in the Supreme Court on behalf of the tycoon.
According to NAB officials, the founder of PTI and his wife acquired land worth billions of rupees from a property tycoon to build an educational institution, in return for which an agreement was signed to provide legal protection to the property tycoon’s black money. .
Later, a few weeks after the PTI-led government approved the deal with the property tycoon, Al-Qadir Trust was set up in Islamabad.
A year-long trial
The accountability watchdog had arrested the founder of PTI on November 13 last year in connection with the said case. After that, NAB interrogated Khan and Bushra in Adiala Jail for 17 days.
After filing the NAB reference on December 1, 2023, the trial began. On February 27, 2024, charges were formally laid against the couple.
Notable witnesses against the PTI founder included his former cabinet member Pervez Khattak, former federal minister Zubaidah Jalal, former principal secretary Azam Khan and the chief financial officer of Al-Qadir University.
The court declared 6 co-accused, including Zulfi Bukhari, Farhat Shahzadi, Mirza Shahzad Akbar and Zia-ul-Mustafa Naseem as fugitives, and ordered the freezing of their assets and bank accounts.
During the proceedings, the Islamabad High Court granted bail to the disqualified prime minister in the £190 million reference, while the trial court granted Bushra’s pre-arrest bail.
The founder chairman of PTI submitted a list of 16 witnesses in the court, but the request to summon them was rejected.
During the course of the case, four judges were replaced with Judge Muhammad Bashir, Judge Nasir Javed Rana, Judge Muhammad Ali Waraich, and then again Judge Rana presiding over the hearings.