PTI’s legal team denied meeting with Imran Khan ahead of the hearing of the Al-Qadir Trust case
RAWALPINDI/ISLAMABAD: The legal team of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf was not allowed to PTI Chairman Imran Khan ahead of the hearing on the Al-Qadir Trust case on Wednesday.
The case will be heard at the location where Imran Khan had been detained. On Tuesday, Rangers arrested Imran Khan and shifted him to NAB regional office in Rawalpindi in the Al-Qadir Trust case involving Rs 50 billion corruption allegations.
“We were stopped from meeting our client,” Babar Awan, a member of Khan’s legal team told the media.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday the Islamabad High Court declared the arrest of Imran Khan legal.
Al-Qadir Trust case hearing first hearing
According to Islamabad chief commissioner, Imran Khan will not be brought to the court in F-8 Katchery and a hearing of the case will take place at the NAB’s regional office. For security reasons, the authorities have changed the venue of the hearing of the case.
What is the Al-Qadir Trust Corruption case?
The NAB is conducting investigations against former prime minister Imran Khan, his third wife Bushra Bibi, and other PTI officials for their role in a shady deal the PTI government made with a property tycoon that reportedly caused a loss of 190 million pounds to the national exchequer.
The authorities have accused Khan and other defendants of accepting bribery worth Rs50 billion, which the Pakistani government received as part of an agreement with the property tycoon by Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA).
Furthermore, authorities have charged them with receiving undue benefits in the form of more than 458 kanals of land in Mouza Bakrala, Sohawa, for the construction of Al Qadir University.
During the PTI government, the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA) seized assets worth 190 million pounds from a property tycoon in Britain.
The agency stated, “We will transfer the assets to the government of Pakistan, and we consider the settlement with the Pakistani property tycoon as a civil matter that does not represent a finding of guilt.”
Prime Minister Khan
Prime Minister Khan, at that time, obtained approval for the settlement with the UK crime agency from his cabinet on December 3, 2019, without revealing the specifics of the confidential agreement.
They determined to submit the money to the Supreme Court on behalf of the tycoon.
The Imran-led government approved the agreement with the property tycoon and established the Al-Qadir Trust in Islamabad a few weeks later.
Initially, they appointed Zulfi Bukhari, Babar Awan, Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi, and her close friend Farah Khan as members of the Al-Qadir Trust.
Two to three months after the cabinet’s approval, the property tycoon transferred 458 canals of land to Bukhari, a close aide of the PTI chief, which he later transferred to the trust.
Bukhari and Awan later withdrew as trustees, and the trust is now registered in the names of Khan, Bushra Bibi, and Farah.
Earlier, National Accountability Bureau (NAB) officials were investigating the alleged abuse of power in the recovery of “dirty money” received from the UK crime agency.
As a result of the discovery of irrefutable evidence in the case, the inquiry against Imran, Bushra Bibi, Barrister Shahzad Akbar, and a real estate tycoon was converted into an investigation.
NAB officials claim that Khan and his wife received land worth billions of rupees from the property tycoon in return for providing legal coverage to the tycoon’s black money received from the UK crime agency.
