By An accountability court on Thursday rejected acquittal pleas from Imran Khan, the founder of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and his wife, Bushra Khan. The couple is accused of receiving land valued at millions of dollars as a bribe from a real estate tycoon through the Al-Qadir Trust, established by them in 2018 while Khan was still in office.
Pakistani authorities allege that the land, worth up to 7 billion rupees ($25 million), was given by a property developer facing money laundering charges in Britain. The accusation is that Khan facilitated the developer’s financial dealings using 190 million pounds repatriated by Britain to pay the developer’s court fines. Khan’s representatives claim the land was donated to the trust for charitable purposes, and the real estate developer denies any wrongdoing.
The acquittal plea follows a Supreme Court decision last week that restored amendments to Pakistan’s anti-corruption laws, which Khan’s PTI party had previously challenged. These amendments, approved in 2022 by the coalition government led by then Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, limited the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) jurisdiction to cases involving corruption over Rs500 million and transferred pending cases to other authorities.
Khan, who was ousted from his prime ministerial position through a no-confidence vote, argued that the amendments were designed to benefit influential figures and legitimize corruption. The Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, had initially deemed these changes unlawful and ordered the restoration of corruption cases. However, the new Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa recently restored the amendments.
As a result of the restored amendments, Khan, who has been in jail since August of the previous year on multiple charges, may now pursue acquittal in major corruption cases, including the land bribe case and another investigation involving the illegal sale of state gifts during his tenure as prime minister.
