https://arab.news/wvgbr
- Hours after acquittal in ‘illegal’ marriage case on Saturday, new corruption referenced filed against couple by NAB
- Reference relates to alleged “misuse of power” in acquiring gifts from a state repository called the toshakhana
ISLAMABAD: Former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Khan have filed an appeal in the Islamabad High Court against a fresh corruption case registered against them hours after they were acquitted on Saturday on charges of marrying unlawfully, the ex-premier’s party said on Monday.
The couple were sentenced to seven years in February this year in what has come to be called the Iddat case in which a lower court found them guilty of breaking Islamic law by failing to observe the required interval, or Iddat, between the divorce from a previous marriage of Bushra and her marriage to Khan. They had filed an appeal against their convictions and were acquitted on Saturday.
Khan was convicted in four cases ahead of a February national election and has been in jail since August last year, but all of the sentences against him, the last of them in the marriage case, have since been overturned or suspended. On Saturday, however, hours after being acquitted in the Iddat case, a fresh corruption reference was filed against the pair by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
“The petitions of Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi have been filed to Justice Aamer Farooq’s court to annul the summons notices in NAB’s new toshakhana [state treasury] inquiry and to stop NAB from proceedings,” Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party said on X on Monday, referring to the chief justice of the Islamabad High Court.
On Saturday, a team of the anti-corruption watchdog arrested the couple from Adiala Jail where they have been imprisoned for months in the new reference related to the alleged “misuse of power in acquiring Toshakhana gifts.”
Khan was given jail sentences — one of 14 years and the other three years — in two cases pertaining to acquiring and selling state gifts. Both sentences have been suspended by high courts while his appeals are heard.
Khan and his wife are charged in the Toshakhana case with selling gifts worth more than 140 million rupees ($501,000) in state possession, which he received during his 2018-2022 premiership. The gifts included diamond jewelry and seven watches, six of them Rolexes — the most expensive being valued at 85 million rupees ($305,000).
Pakistani media widely reported on Sunday that an accountability court had approved an eight-day physical remand each for Khan and Bushra in the new NAB reference.
“The accountability court today [Sunday] has directed the NAB to interrogate the two suspects in Adiala jail and also ordered to produce the couple before the court on July 22,” Geo News reported.
Khan is still facing trial on anti-terrorism charges in connection with violence against the military and other state installations that erupted following his brief arrest in May 2023.
A court last week canceled Khan’s bail in the case, creating a new ground to keep him behind bars following his acquittal on the unlawful marriage charges.