ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf on Friday announced its intention to challenge the conviction of its jailed founder Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi in the £190 million pound Al-Qadir Trust case, while the government tried to justify the punishment as “just deserts” for the former prime minister.
Reacting to the announcement of the verdict on Friday, PTI leaders such as Omar Ayub, Sheikh Waqqas Akram and others protested the couple’s innocence and maintained that their party founder had been subjected to political victimisation.
“We will challenge the verdict in the superior courts,” the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly told a press conference after the verdict.
Interim party chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan divulged that an appeal would be filed before the high court within a few days, and hoped that Mr Khan would be released soon.
He also said the party founder, whose morale was high despite his conviction, had directed them to continue talks with the government.
Omar Ayub said that Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi had nothing to do with the money involved in the case, adding that those who had laundered it were living freely abroad.
His counterpart in the Senate echoed these sentiments, saying that while thieves are roaming freely, those who are innocent and honest, and on the path of righteousness are being punished.
PTI lawyer Faisal Chaudhry termed the decision an example of the “political use of NAB”.
“There was no evidence of monetary gain, crime proceed or financial corruption. This is a nonsense decision of a nonsense case,” he claimed.
Meanwhile, the party’s spokesperson, Sheikh Waqqas Akram, smelled a rat in the way the decision had been put off multiple times by Judge Nasir Javed Rana, and also questioned his competence.
Addressing a press conference at the KP information department on Friday, Mr Akram said that there was definitely some kind of interference or agenda behind the many postponements of the Al-Qadir Trust case verdict over the past weeks.
He said that previously, three judges hearing the case were changed, and the one who announced the verdict was fourth judge to hear the matter.
The judge, Mr Akram went on to say, was declared by the Supreme Court in 2004 as “unfit for judicial service” and his judicial powers were also withdrawn.
Mr Akram said the PTI rejected this verdict, arguing that if it had been heard under the tenants of law and justice, Imran Khan would have been exonerated.
He said that Imran Khan could not be cowed with such tactics. He said that the cases against the PTI founder were bogus and lacking any substance and this case too would soon find itself in a dustbin.
