Islamabad: Former prime minister Imran Khan, who is already imprisoned in Adiala Jail in the cipher case, has also been arrested by Pakistan’s top anti-corruption office in the Al-Qadir Trust case and Toshakhana gifts case, media reports said Tuesday.
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested Khan Monday after Accountability Court Judge Mohammad Bashir ratified the arrest warrants and directed the Adiala Jail superintendent to execute them, the Dawn newspaper reported.
“Khan was arrested in Al-Qadir Trust case also on Monday when a NAB team, led by Assistant Director Muhammad Asif and Waqarul Hasan visited District Jail (Adiala), Rawalpindi, and executed arrest warrants through the jail superintendent,” The News International reported.
It said the execution of the arrest warrants meant that Khan, former Prime Minister and chief of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, was also arrested in Toshakhana, Al-Qadir cases. He would be investigated in jail by an NAB team after obtaining his physical remand from a court of law.
Khan, 71, has been lodged in the Adiala Jail in connection with the cipher case, months after his arrest in August. The Ali-Qadir Trust case is about the settlement of 190 million pounds, about Rs 50 billion, which the UK’s National Crime Agency sent to Pakistan after recovering the amount from a Pakistani property tycoon.
Khan being the prime minister then, instead of depositing it in the national kitty, allowed the businessman to use the amount to partly settle a fine of about Rs 450 billion imposed by the Supreme Court some years ago.
Reportedly, the tycoon in return gifted about 57 acres of land to a trust set up by Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi to establish the Al-Qadir University in the Sohawa area of the Jhelum district of Punjab.
During the hearing Monday, the judge had earlier asked the NAB prosecutor about the status of Khan’s pleas to revive his bail petitions in the two cases, to which he replied that the pleas were pending in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) and there was no restraining order issued so far, the Dawn report said.
The court had also issued Khan’s arrest warrant in the Toshakhana gifts case, which is a different case from the one he was convicted in August and arrested but later granted bail. That case was filed by the Election Commission of Pakistan for hiding the proceeds of sale from the gifts he got from the Toshakhana.
The latest arrest warrant was issued in the case filed by the NAB, which approached the court to issue arrest warrants against Khan because he needed to complete an investigation in the two cases.
The court accepted the plea and directed the superintendent of Adiala jail, Rawalpindi to ensure compliance.
PTI