Bushra and Imran’s £190m acquittal pleas adjourned

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PTI founder Imran Khan and wife Bushra Bibi have requested an acquittal in the £190m case which appeared to be heading to trial. On Tuesday, an accountability court adjourned the hearing till September 12.

At an accountability court hearing today in Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail, both defendants appeared before the court.

On Saturday, the former prime minister filed a plea urging acquittal in the £190 million case following the Supreme Court’s verdict in the amendment case against the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), in which the court accepted an intra-court appeal that challenged last year’s verdict that overturned the changes to the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO).

Several billions of rupees are alleged to have been lost to the national exchequer by the couple. Earlier this week, the court reserved judgement on Bushra’s acquittal plea.

The lawyers of Khan and Bushra were unavailable today for cross-examination since they had commitments at the Lahore High Court (LHC).

NAB’s prosecution team also rejected assistant counsel Faisal Chaudhry’s attempt to adjourn the hearing.

It is alleged that Khan and Bushra’s lawyers have intentionally used delay tactics in the case to gain an advantage over the executive since they have been given a total of 16 chances to cross-examine the last witness.

According to the NAB prosecutor, considering the fact that a total of 12 affidavits have been submitted by the defence lawyers in this matter, the counsels, Barrister Ali Zafar and Chaudhry, should cross-examine the witness in the present case since they are present.

In response to Chaudhry’s request, the court decided to give them a chance and said they would cross-examine the witness after the next hearing, if the attorneys fail to appear.

Reference figure of £190 million

It is alleged that Khan and others were involved in adjusting more than Rs50 billion – around £190 million at the time – sent by Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) to the Pakistani government as part of a deal with the property tycoon.

As a result, on December 3, 2019, when Khan was still the prime minister, his cabinet approved the settlement with the UK crime agency, but without disclosing any details of the confidential agreement that Khan had signed.

As a result of this decision, the tycoon will have the money submitted to the Supreme Court on his behalf and it will be decided there.

In an interview with the NAB, Khan revealed that he and his wife had obtained land worth billions of rupees from the property tycoon in order to construct an educational institute, in return for striking a deal to give legal cover for the property tycoon’s black money, which had been received from the UK crime agency.

Timenews1 provided that news.

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