The Islamabad high court has suspended the 14-year sentence given to former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi in the Toshakhana corruption case.
The two were earlier sentenced before the general elections. Chief justice Aamer Farooq said the appeal against the punishment would be fixed for hearing after the Eid holidays.
Under the rules, government officials can keep gifts by paying a price for them but first the gift should be deposited.
The anti-corruption watchdog had alleged that Khan and his wife had received 108 gifts from heads of state and foreign officials, some worth millions of rupees, during his term as prime minister and that many had been illegally kept or sold by the pair.
Initially, he was sentenced to a three-year sentence, but after a higher court threw out the judgment, the legal proceedings began again after investigators presented fresh evidence.
The lower court in its judgment said Imran hid “the benefits he accrued from the national exchequer wilfully and intentionally. He cheated while providing information of gifts he obtained from the Toshakhana which later proved to be false and inaccurate. His dishonesty has been established beyond doubt.”
The former prime minister and his wife Bushra Bibi are in jail in a number of graft cases which includes from receiving land as a bribe along with breaking Islamic law.
Khan has been in jail since August last year and just before the February 8 polls, he was sentenced to a 31-year jail term in three different cases. In total, he is facing over 200 cases. Khan alleged that the legal cases against him were a plot to sideline him ahead of the Pakistan elections.
Imran Khan’s party the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf had back then said, “This case has no basis to stand in any higher court. It’s shameful how a complete disregard and mockery of the law is in place.”
