Ex-Pak PM Imran Khan, wife Bushra Bibi sentenced to 17 years in Toshakhana corruption case
Islamabad (PTI): A Pakistani accountability court on Saturday sentenced jailed former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi to 17 years imprisonment each in the Toshakhana 2 corruption case.
The case is about alleged fraud in state gifts, which the former first couple received from the Saudi government in 2021.
Special court judge Shahrukh Arjumand announced the judgment in the case in Rawalpindi's high-security Adiala Jail.
Khan and Bushra were awarded 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment under Section 409 (criminal breach of trust) of the Pakistan Penal Code and seven years under different Sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
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The court also imposed a fine of PKR 16.4 million on each of them.
The case was filed in July 2024 and was based on allegations that valuable items, including expensive watches, as well as diamond and gold jewellery sets, were sold by the former couple without being deposited in the Toshakhana - the state gift repository.
In October 2024, Bushra was granted bail by the Islamabad High Court in this case, and a month later, Khan was also granted bail in the same case. They were indicted in December last year.
Meanwhile, the prosecution process went on in the Adiala Jail, where both Khan and his wife have already been incarcerated after conviction earlier this year in the Al-Qadir Trust case.
Both convicts can file appeals in the High Court against their convictions.
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PM's silence on Kharge's insult by Himanta is his consent: Rahul
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said the use of "derogatory language" against party chief Mallikarjun Kharge by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is an insult to the entire SC/ST community, and the silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the matter "is not his helplessness, but his consent".
"If the prime minister sees an attack on the dignity of crores of Dalits in the country and does not speak up - he is not only shirking his responsibility, but is also a party to that insult," Gandhi said in a post in Hindi on X.
Gandhi said the use of "vulgar and derogatory language" by Sarma against Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Kharge "is entirely condemnable, shameful, and unacceptable".
"Kharge ji is a senior and popular Dalit leader of the country - his experience, stature, and prestige are unparalleled. Insulting him is not an insult to one individual alone, but also to crores of people from the SC-ST community in this country," he posted.
This, he said, just reflected the "old and premeditated mindset" of the BJP-RSS and was nothing new, the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha said.
"Whether it is the insult to Babasaheb Ambedkar, belittling Dalit leaders, or personal attacks on representatives of the SC-ST community - the history of BJP and RSS bears witness that whenever a Dalit leader speaks the truth, they stoop to humiliate him," he posted.
"This is their ideology, this is their true character and face," he added.
Posing a direct question to the PM, he asked, "do you support Himanta Sarma's use of this language? Your silence is not helplessness, it is consent."
Sarma earlier hit out at Kharge, claiming that he was "speaking like a madman" due to old age, after the latter put the onus on central agencies to probe the charges made against the Assam chief minister.
Slamming the Congress chief, Sarma said, "Kharge is ageing and is speaking like a pagal (madman)."
