Sunday 24 / November / 2024
Rawalpindi : A Rawalpindi accountability court has issued non-bailable arrest warrants for Bushra Bibi, the wife of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan, in connection with the GBP 190 million corruption case linked to the Al-Qadir University Trust, ARY News reported.
The court, presided over by Judge Nasir Javed Rana, issued the arrest warrants following the ongoing investigation into the alleged financial discrepancies involving the former prime minister and his family.
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan was also presented before the court in connection with the case. Despite the new arrest warrants, both Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi had previously been granted bail by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) in relation to the National Crime Agency (NCA) settlement reference concerning the GBP 190 million.
The IHC's two-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, had reserved its verdict after hearing the case. In a short order, the court had instructed the authorities to release Imran Khan against a surety bond of PKR 1 million, reported ARY News.
Meanwhile, Bushra Bibi, in a separate development, issued a video message urging PTI supporters to participate in the party's planned protest on November 24. She referred to the protest as a "final or do-or-die" call, urging party workers to rally against the government.
She claimed that negative propaganda against her family started after their visit to Madinah, Saudi Arabia, followed by calls for her character assassination and accusations against her husband, Imran Khan, of being a "Jewish agent."
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had launched an investigation into the alleged gain of hundreds of acres of land under the Al-Qadir University Trust, with the claim that it caused a loss of GBP 190 million to the national treasury.
According to the charges, Imran Khan and others accused in the case allegedly misallocated PKR 50 billion (equivalent to GBP 190 million at the time) that had been sent by the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) to the Pakistani government, ARY News reported.
In response, NAB filed a corruption reference involving Imran Khan, his wife Bushra Bibi, and six other individuals related to the Al-Qadir University project, which was registered on December 26, 2019.
