A Pakistani court has sentenced former Prime Minister Imran Khan to 14 years in prison on corruption charges.
The politician’s wife, Bushra Bibi, was sentenced to seven years in prison on the same charge. In addition, the convicts were sentenced to a large fine, failure to pay which could result in an additional six months in prison.
Imran Khan and his wife are alleged to have received land plots as bribes and laundered illegal income in 2018 while running the Al-Qadir Trust, a charitable foundation that served as a front for the politician and his wife’s illegal activities. Khan was also given a fine of 1 million Pakistani rupees ($3,500), while Bibi was fined half that amount.
According to Al-Jazeera, An accountability court operating from Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, where Khan has been imprisoned since August 2023, had reserved its verdict in December last year and deferred the announcement three times. Bibi was arrested at the court premises.
Imran Khan was Pakistan’s prime minister from 2018 to 2022. He was removed from office on April 10, 2022, following a no-confidence vote in parliament. He has been serving a prison sentence since 2023 for selling foreign gifts from a state treasure vault.
