The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has scheduled the primary appeals of former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, in the £190 million case for hearing on May 7. The court declined their request to prioritize pleas seeking suspension of their sentences and release on bail.
A division bench, led by IHC Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar alongside Justice Muhammad Asif, resolved to proceed with the main appeals filed by the PTI founder and his spouse challenging their convictions in this high-profile case.
Previously, an accountability court in Islamabad sentenced Imran Khan to 14 years in prison and imposed a fine of Rs1 million. Bushra Bibi received a seven-year prison term with a fine of Rs500,000. The court dismissed the applications seeking suspension of these sentences, deeming them “infructuous” since the main appeals had already been scheduled, making separate hearings unnecessary.
The defense had urged the court to hear the suspension pleas first to obtain interim relief before the detailed appeal process commenced. Conversely, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) argued that once the main appeals are set for hearing, separate consideration of sentence suspension requests is unwarranted and should not be prioritized.
In a notable development earlier this year, the court fined NAB’s special prosecutor Rs100,000 for employing delaying tactics during the proceedings of this case.
Imran Khan has been incarcerated since August 2023 and faces multiple cases, including charges related to corruption and terrorism, following his removal from office through a no-confidence vote in April 2022.
The £190 million case, also known as the Al-Qadir Trust case, centers on allegations that in 2019, Imran Khan and others misappropriated Rs50 billion (equivalent to £190 million at the time) transferred by Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) to the Pakistani government during his premiership. This sum pertained to assets seized from a property tycoon by the NCA during PTI’s administration.
At the time, the British crime agency clarified that the funds were to be handed over to Pakistan as part of a civil settlement and did not imply any finding of guilt. However, NAB filed a reference in December 2023 and subsequently charged Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi on February 27, 2024, alleging that the settlement with the British agency was finalized and approved by Imran Khan on December 3, 2019, without disclosing the confidential details of the agreement.
