 "Imran Khan")
Pakistan's former prime minister Imran Khan was arrested on May 9 from the Islamabad High Court premises, where he had arrived for the hearing of two cases. Pakistani daily Dawn reported that Akbar Nasir Khan, inspector general police of Islamabad, said Imran Khan was arrested in the Al-Qadir Trust case. In the case, Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, have been accused of receiving "billions of rupees from a real estate firm for legalising a laundered amount of 5,000 crore Pakistani rupee."
The arrest was made by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), an autonomous and constitutionally established federal body responsible for building efforts against corruption and "prepare critical national economic intelligence assessments against economic terrorism for the government of Pakistan".
Khan was arrested in connection with the Al-Qadir Trust case.
What is the Al-Qadir Trust case?
Part 1 - The UK probe
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Pakistani property tycoon Malik Riaz was investigated in the United Kingdom in connection with his business in the country. In 2018, UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) agreed to settle the dispute with Riaz for 190 million pounds, including a UK property – 1 Hyde Park Place, London, W2 2LH – valued at approximately 50 million pounds.
The NCA said that settlement money would be returned to the state of Pakistan.
Part 2 - The Pak SC penalty
Before the UK judgement, Pakistan's Supreme Court had also pronounced a judgement and imposed a penalty on Riaz's business in Pakistan. The Sindh government had granted 16,896 acres of land to the Malir Development Authority (MDA), which later exchanged it with Riaz's Bahria Town.
The land was originally granted to develop a housing scheme, but Bahria Town instead launched a scheme of its own, called the Malir or Karachi Superhighway project.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan said that Bahria Town acquired the land illegally and accepted a settlement of Pak Rs 460 billion.
Part 3 - The settlement
After the UK NCA verdict, Riaz tweeted that 190 million pounds would go to Pakistan's Supreme Court against the Pak Rs 460 billion fine. However, the NCA judgement had asked for the amount to be sent to the government.
The money was eventually transferred to the court's account and not to the Pakistan government's.
The questions about the origins of the money transferred remained unanswered. There were suspicions that Riaz's company was involved in money laundering. Pakistan's special assistant to the prime minister (SAPM) also refused to entertain queries about the money and how it was stashed abroad.
Part 4 - Allegations of quid pro quo
In June 2022, audio of an alleged telephone conversation between Riaz and his daughter leaked where they were heard about the supposed demands of Farah Khan, aka Gogi, against some favours for the previous government of Imran Khan. Gogi is a friend of Bushra Bibi. Dawn reported that the woman (believed to be Riaz's daughter) told the man that Gogi had told her that the former first lady had asked her not to accept a three-karat diamond ring and demanded a five-karat one.
A report by The Nation said that in December 2019, Imran Khan's cabinet took up the matter concerning the freezing of Riaz's accounts. Soon, a "private housing society" announced it would bear all expenses of the Al-Qadir University project. It purchased 460 Kanals (valued at Pak Rs 243 million) in Jhelum and transferred the land in the name of Zulfi Bukhari.
Bukhari, it later surfaced, transferred the land to the trust (to Bushra Bibi) after receiving it.
In April 2020, Khan informed the joint sub-registrar of Islamabad that Bukhari's name had been "deleted" from the trust, the report added. Khan was then the chairman of Al Qadir Trust and the PM of Pakistan.
In the same month, Pakistan's interior minister Rana Sanaullah accused Khan and his wife of accepting "Pak Rs 500 crore and hundreds of Kanals of land from Private Housing Society in return for 'providing protection' to the real estate firm in a money laundering case".
Now, according to Dawn, Imran Khan, along with his wife Bushra Bibi and other PTI leaders, are facing a NAB inquiry on these allegations.
The report also said that the land was given to the accused in the form of a "donation" to a non-profit organisation, Al-Qadir Trust, to set up a university. Notably, the organisation had only two trustees, Imran and Bushra Bibi.
The allegations state that the settlement between Riaz and the PTI government caused a loss of 190 million pounds to the national exchequer.
