A Pakistani court has sentenced former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife to fourteen and seven years in prison, respectively, after they were found guilty of corruption, according to his lawyers and authorities.
During Mr Khan’s tenure, the two were accused of taking a gift of land from a real estate mogul in exchange for money laundering.
The court also fined Mr Khan Rs 1 million (£2,930) and ordered his wife to pay half of it.
According to prosecutors, Mr Khan allowed the businessman Malik Riaz to pay fines that were imposed on him in a separate case out of the laundered amount of £190m ($240m).
The amount was returned by the British authorities to Pakistan in 2022 to be deposited to the national exchequer.
This marks the fourth major case in which the former prime minister has been convicted.
Three earlier convictions, announced in January last year, were related to selling state gifts, leaking state secrets, and unlawful marriage, all of which were overturned or suspended.
Despite this, Khan remains behind bars, with dozens of cases pending against him – a situation he describes as a political witch-hunt.
Khan was first arrested in connection with the Al-Qadir Trust case in May 2023, spending less than two days in detention. However, the arrest led to nationwide protests during which Khan’s supporters rioted in multiple cities.
The charge sheet accused Khan and his wife of acquiring land worth billions of rupees (millions of US dollars) for the Al-Qadir Trust from Malik Riaz, a prominent property tycoon in Pakistan, to establish a nonprofit educational institute for the poor.
The NAB claimed that Khan, as prime minister from August 2018 to April 2022, struck a quid pro quo pact with Riaz, allowing him to launder more than $239 million. This supposedly resulted in enormous losses for the national treasury.
According to the NAB, Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) government provided legal cover for Riaz’s black money, which had been collected by the UK’s National Crime Agency and turned over to Pakistani authorities.
