Cabinet committee recommends adding Imran, Bushra’s name to ECL

A subcommittee of the federal cabinet on Wednesday recommended placing the names of Pakistan Tehreel-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairperson Imran Khan, Bushra Bibi and 27 others on the Exit Control List in connection with the £190 million case.

The Ministry of Interior, in a post on X, said a meeting of the subcommittee was held today and it was attended by interim interior minister Sarfraz Bugti and other officials.

The post added that the committee recommended adding 41 names sent by various departments and institutions to the ECL.

“On the recommendation of NAB, names of 29 people, including Imran Khan, were recommended to be put on the ECL in the £190 million scandal.”

Recommendations were also made to remove 13 names from the ECL. The recommendations made today were sent to the federal cabinet for final approval.

Read: Govt approves Imran’s in-prison trial in £190 million case

The settlement case

The £190 million (approximately Rs60 billion) settlement case pertains to the money of a property tycoon being laundered and caught by the UK authorities during Imran’s government in 2019. The UK government had informed the Pakistani authorities regarding the money being caught.

The notorious May 9 arrest of the ex-prime minister came in this case for the first time.

Addressing a press conference regarding Imran’s arrest in the case at the time, then interior minister Rana Sanaullah said that as per law, the amount belonged to the Pakistani nation and should have been deposited in the national exchequer. “Instead [the then adviser to the prime minister] Shahzad Akbar acting as a front-man, got formed the Al-Qadir Trust under a deal executed by him,” he claimed.

The minister said some 458-kanal of land in Sohawa and another 240-kanal in Bani Gala were registered in the name of Al-Qadir Trust.

Sanaullah said some seven to eight months ago, he had provided details of the two properties and had challenged the PTI chief to clarify if Al-Qadir Trust was not established by Imran himself to hide his corruption.

Sanaullah said the PTI chief and his wife Bushra Bibi were the only two trustees of the trust.

He said the 240-kanal of land in Bani Gala, worth around Rs5-7 billion, was registered in the name of Farah Gogi, a close friend of Imran Khan’s wife, while Akbar had also taken Rs2 billion for his services.

He said instead of depositing Rs60 billion into the national treasury, the amount landed in the bank account of the Supreme Court, where the accused property tycoon was under trial. The amount was, in fact, returned to the accused in a complex manner to hoodwink the masses, he added.