A Pakistani court sentenced former Prime Minister Imran Khan to 14 years in prison on Friday in a land corruption case, a setback for emerging talks between his party and the government aimed at calming political instability in the South Asian country.
The ruling in this case was issued by the Anti-Corruption Court in a prison in the city of Rawalpindi, where Khan has been in prison since August 2023.
Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi was also convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. She was released on bail but was detained after the sentencing, Geo News reported.
Law Minister Azam Nazir Tarar told reporters that Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party could approach higher courts to appeal the ruling, and that the former cricket star could also submit a mercy petition to the Pakistani president.
Omar Ayub, an aide to Khan, said the party would appeal the ruling in the higher courts.
Khan (72 years old) was accused of receiving land from a real estate developer during his term as prime minister from 2018 to 2022 in exchange for illegal services.
Khan and Bibi pleaded not guilty.
Dispute over land purchase
The case is linked to the Al Qadir Fund, a non-governmental welfare body set up by the couple while Khan was in office.
Prosecutors say the fund was a front for Khan to illegally obtain land from a real estate developer. They said he was given 24 hectares near Islamabad and another large plot of land close to his hilltop palace in the capital.
Khan says the land was not for personal gain, but for the spiritual and educational institution established by the former prime minister.
“While we await a detailed decision, it is important to note that the Qadir Trust case against Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi lacks any solid foundation and is doomed to collapse,” the foreign media wing of PTI said in a statement.
The ruling announcement was postponed three times, most recently on Monday, amid reconciliation talks between PTI and the government. The two sides have been at loggerheads since Khan was ousted from office in 2022.
The ruling is the biggest setback for Khan and his party since a surprisingly good performance in the 2024 general election when PTI candidates – who had to compete as independents – won the largest number of seats, but fell short of the majority needed to form the government.
Khan, who has been imprisoned since August 2023, faces dozens of cases ranging from accusations of graft and abuse of power to incitement to violence against the state after he was removed from office in a parliamentary vote of confidence in April 2022.
Khan, who led Pakistan to the 1992 Cricket World Cup, has been acquitted or had his sentences suspended in most cases, except for this case and another on charges of inciting his supporters to storm military installations to protest his arrest on May 9. 2023.
He denied any wrongdoing in all the cases brought against him, and told Reuters that the army, which has ruled Pakistan for most of its history since independence in 1947, and the intelligence service are trying to destroy him and his political party.
His supporters have led several violent protest marches since the events of May 9.
Khan’s cases were tried inside the prison for security reasons.
An increasingly prominent role for Bushra
Khan and his followers usually referred to his wife as Bushra Bibi or Bushra Begum, titles of respect in the Urdu language.
Born Bushra Riaz Watto, she changed her name to Khan after they married in 2018, his third marriage and her second.
Thousands of protesters were met with tear gas and bullets in Islamabad, demanding the release of jailed former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. CBC South Asia correspondent Salima Shivji explains the crackdown and what brought long-simmering tensions to the boiling point.
She usually appears in public with her face covered with a veil, and wearing a plain black or white abaya or robe.
Bushra, who is in her late forties, made international headlines when she entered the capital, Islamabad, last year with thousands of PTI supporters who broke through tight security barriers.
“You all have to promise that you will not leave until Khan is among us,” Bushra said in her first-ever speech at a public gathering.
Underscoring her increasingly active role in the PTI, she insisted on holding the protest at the sensitive central site, despite Khan’s instructions to rally on the outskirts of the capital, according to party officials.
She was released from prison in October after nine months in a case related to the illegal sale of state gifts.