Jan 31 (Reuters) – Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Khan were each handed a 14-year jail sentence on Wednesday in a case related to illegal selling of state gifts.
The verdict by an anti-graft court came a day after Khan received a 10-year jail sentence for leaking state secrets.
In prison since August, Khan, 71, denies wrongdoing and accuses the military of persecuting him.
Following are details of the main cases among 150 he says have been launched against him since being ousted from power in 2022.
SECRETS CASE
* Khan was convicted on Tuesday with making public a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington in 2022, in what is commonly known as the Cipher case. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He denies the charge and has said the contents appeared in the media from other sources.
* Khan has said the cable was proof of a conspiracy by the military and U.S. government to topple his government in 2022 after he visited Moscow just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Washington and Pakistan’s military deny that.
GIFTS CASE
* Also known as the Toshakhana or state treasury case, Khan was previously handed a three-year prison sentence in August by another court for selling gifts worth more than 140 million rupees ($501,000) in state possession and received during his 2018-2022 premiership.
* That sentence was later suspended but Khan remained in prison in connection with other cases. On Wednesday, an anti-graft court sentenced Khan and his wife to 14 years in jail in the same case. He has said that he legally purchased the items. Government officials have alleged Khan’s aides sold the gifts in Dubai.
* A list of these gifts shared by a former information minister included perfumes, diamond jewellery, dinner sets and seven watches, six of them Rolexes – the most expensive being a “Master Graff limited edition” valued at 85 million rupees ($304,000).
LAND BRIBERY CASE
* Khan was previously arrested for four days in May last year on charges that he and his wife received land as a bribe through the Al-Qadir Trust – a charitable trust set up by Bushra Watto, Khan’s third wife, and Khan in 2018 when still in office.
* Pakistani authorities have accused Khan and his wife of receiving the land, worth up to 7 billion rupees ($25 million), from a property developer charged in Britain with money laundering.
* Authorities accused Khan of getting the land in exchange for a favour to the property developer by using 190 million pounds repatriated by Britain in the money laundering probe to pay fines levied by a court against the developer.
* Khan’s aides have previously said that the land was donated to the trust for charitable purposes. The real estate developer has also denied any wrongdoing.
ABETTING VIOLENCE
* Khan has been indicted under Pakistan’s anti-terrorism law in connection with violence against the military that erupted following his brief arrest related to the Al-Qadir case on May 9.
* A section of Pakistan’s 1997 anti-terrorism act prescribes the death penalty as maximum punishment.
* Khan has denied the charges under the anti-terrorism law, saying he was in detention when the violence took place.
($1 = 279.2500 Pakistani rupees)
