Former prime minister Imran Khan has been convicted in the Al-Qadir Trust Case, with an accountability court handing him a 14-year jail sentence at the end of a trial that has lasted nearly two years. The sentence also convicted the former premier’s wife, Bushra Bibi, handing down a seven-year jail sentence to her.
The Al-Qadir Trust case has been the largest and most pivotal legal challenge the former prime minister has had to face since being ousted from office in 2022. It has been a sprawling investigation that has embroiled among others Bahria Town founder Malik Riaz, the Supreme Court’s dam fund, and members of Khan’s former cabinet. In the two years since it appeared as a prominent legal threat, the case has become the reason not just for Imran Khan’s initial arrest in May 2023, which then led to the events of 9th May, it has also brought the once mighty Bahria Town to the brink of default.
But what exactly are the details of the Al-Qadir Trust Case? To put it mildly the case is perhaps one of the most clouded and murky webs from the Imran Khan administration. It involves accusations of bribery, corruption, and kickbacks against the Khan administration, and all of these claims go back to a single transaction that took place in 2019.
Ripples from the UK
In 2019, the National Crime Agency (NCA) of the United Kingdom agreed to a settlement worth £190 million with the family of property tycoon Malik Riaz. The settlement was the largest ever in the history of the NCA, and since it was out of court, came with the stipulation that it did not “represent a finding of guilt”.
To understand this, the NCA is a national law enforcement agency in the UK that investigates money laundering and illicit finances derived from criminal activity in the UK and abroad. If the NCA is investigating a case outside of the UK, it returns the stolen money to the affected state. So if the agency is investigating fraud or money laundering in Pakistan, it will prosecute or make a settlement in the UK and return the money to the Pakistani government. That is what happened in the case of Malik Riaz. His family had been under a ‘dirty money’ NCA investigation for a while, which reached its conclusion with Malik Riaz paying £190 million to the NCA. This money was then supposed to be sent to the Pakistan government.
However, the matter gets murky with the entrance of Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar. On Dec 5, 2019, Mr Akbar announced at a press conference in Islamabad that £140m had been repatriated to Pakistan.
But there was a problem. This money had not gone back to the federal government. Instead, the money had been transferred directly into the account of the Supreme Court. But why would the money go to the SC?
Well, 2019 was the same year that Bahria Town was in some serious trouble. This was the year the company was subject to a decision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan that fined it Rs 460 billion. To cut a very long story short, Bahria Town had acquired land from the Malir Development Authority for its superhighway project in Karachi. That land, originally owned by the Sindh government, was declared illegally acquired. In March 2019, the court accepted Bahria Town Karachi’s Rs 460 billion offer for the lands it occupies in the Malir district of Karachi and restrained the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) from filing references against it.
Bahria Town would have to make the payments over the course of seven-and-a-half-years. They would have to pay Rs 25 billion by August 2019, followed by monthly installments of Rs 2.25 billion for the next three years. If they failed to make the payments for two months straight, the company would be considered a defaulter.
At the same time, the NCA also ordered Bahria Town to pay them £190 million. Bahria Town paid the NCA, but they did not have the liquidity to pay the Supreme Court. This is where the problem starts. When the NCA repatriated the money back to Pakistan, it was deposited in the account designated by the SC for the payment Bahria Town was supposed to make in the transfer of land case regarding Bahria Town Karachi.
The direct transfer of the £140m into the special SC account raised alarm bells since it basically meant that the money Malik Riaz had paid to the NCA which was supposed to come back to Pakistan had simply gone back to Malik Riaz. This was particularly crucial since Bahria Town faced the threat of default if it had not paid the fine the SC had imposed.
The government’s involvement
This leaves us with a pretty simple question. Why would the Imran Khan government give Malik Riaz his money back? The answer, as claimed by the case against Khan and his wife, is kickbacks. Particularly kickbacks regarding the Al-Qadir Trust.
The case alleges mran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi of accepting billions in cash and hundreds of kanals of land from Bahria Town in return for the help that Khan’s government gave to Riaz during his investigation by the NCA. Interior minister Rana Sanaullah claimed that Bahria Town entered an agreement and gave a 458-kanal land with an on-paper value of Rs 530 million to a trust owned by Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi. The land was donated to Al-Qadir Trust, and the agreement bore signatures of the real estate’s donors and Bushra Bibi.
The then PDM government claimed that Imran’s aide Shehzad Akbar had “settled” the entire case, while the Rs 50 billion-which belonged to the national treasury-was adjusted against Bahria Town’s liability. He said Imran had received a graft of Rs 5 billion as “his share” through Akbar before the case was wrapped. He further said that Bahria Town, after its Rs 50 billion was protected by the then PTI government, had allotted 458 Kanal land with an on-paper value of Rs 530 million to a trust owned by Imran and his wife. He further said that another 240 Kanals were transferred to “Farah Shehzadi” commonly known as Farah Gogi — a close friend of Bushra Bibi.
It is these 458-kanals that have now come under the scrutiny of the accountability bureau. During the case proceedings, a bombshell revelation was made when a prosecution witness claimed during their testimony that the son of property tycoon Malik Riaz, Ali Riaz Malik, bought land for Farah Shahzadi in Bani Gali. Farah Shahzadi is a known associate of former first lady Bushra Bibi and has been linked in the case as well. According to the details provided by the witness, who is a patwari of Circle Mohra Noor (Banigala), claimed that nearly 245 Kanals of land in Bani Gala had been transferred in the name of Farah Shahzadi at a declared cost of Rs 53.28 crores.
The witness came armed with fourteen mutations that showed the different phases in which the land was transferred. The words of the testimony, as reported by Dawn, said “the land measuring 100 kanals, one marla was transferred in the name of Farhat Shahzadi against the consideration of Rs25 crores and 1 lakh 25,000, while the land measuring 100 kanals, five marlas was transferred in the name of Farhat Shahzadi for the consideration of Rs 25 crore, 6 lakhs and 25000, while the land measuring 40 kanals was transferred in the name of Farhat Shahzadi for the consideration of Rs 3.2 crores.”
At the same time, the witness also clarified that there seemed to be no direct involvement of former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi, since “as per record, the names of accused Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi and Bushra Imran are not mentioned there as witnesses or in any manner whatsoever”
Meanwhile, things were getting bad for Bahria Town as well. The accountability court froze the properties of property tycoon Malik Riaz and his son. Rumors started circulating that Bahria Town properties were falling in value and the organisation was undertaking layoffs.
The conviction
The judgement in the case had been made a while ago, but the conviction was repeatedly delayed. While the conviction was being delayed, the government was engaging in negotiations with the PTI. Following his arrest, the PTI has gained much popular support, as seen in the recent general elections, and many of the party’s leaders allege the timing of the case is politically motivated.
The Al-Qadir Trust case is far from the only case Khan is implicated in. While appeals courts have given him relief in a number of these cases, the Al-Qadir Trust Case was the strongest and most threatening legal challenge for the former prime minister. The PTI has promised to fight the conviction, however the new jail term adds pressure to ongoing negotiations with the PTI.
