Toshakhana reference: Imran, wife sentenced to 14 years
Former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi were sentenced on Wednesday to 14 years in jail with rigorous punishment in the Toshakhana case.
Accountability court Judge Muhammad Bashir announced the verdict today.
The accountability court also disqualified Imran for 10 years while handing over a fine of Rs1.573 billion to the couple.
The verdict comes just eight days before the February 8 general elections.
Moreover, the verdict comes a day after a special court handed the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder and his close aide, ex-foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, 10 years in jail in the cipher case.
Special court Judge Abul Hasnat Zulqarnain announced the verdict at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.
It is pertinent to mention that the former PM has already been 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.
His sentence was later suspended but Imran remains behind bars in connection with other cases.
Established in 1974, the Toshakhana is a department under the administrative control of the Cabinet Division and stores precious gifts given to rulers, parliamentarians, bureaucrats, and officials by heads of other governments and states and foreign dignitaries.
Background
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) filed a reference against Imran and his wife, saying that as former prime minister, Imran was presented with 108 gifted state assets, out of the same, 58 gifted state assets were retained by him.
He did not deposit the gifted state assets in Toshakhana for fair price assessment in contravention of rules and subsequently retained said gifted state items worth millions of rupees, NAB said.
The gifted state assets were retained without fair price assessment, NAB said, adding that, Imran sold/misappropriated some of the gifted state assets for personal benefit.
The NAB said that investigation proceedings further revealed that Bushra being the wife of ex-PM, received gifts from foreign dignitaries amounting to millions of rupees and retained these gifts against a meager retention cost based on under value assessment/appraisement.
