Imran Khan, wife sentenced to 14 years in prison in third conviction
The Hindu
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife sentenced to 14 years in prison for corruption and leaking state secrets.
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife were sentenced on Wednesday to 14 years in prison for corruption, his lawyer and prison officials said, a day after another special court convicted Khan of leaking state secrets and gave him a 10-year prison sentence.
The latest conviction and sentencing were Khan’s third since 2022 when he was ousted from power.
Khan and his wife were accused in the most recent case of retaining and selling state gifts when the former premier was in power.
The court also disqualified Khan for years from holding any public office, ahead of Pakistan’s February 8 parliamentary elections. Khan’s lawyer Babar Awan said the former prime minister was convicted and sentenced in such a hurry that the judge did not wait for the arrival of his legal team.
He said Khan’s basic human and fundamental rights had been violated, and that the latest conviction and sentencing would be challenged in higher courts.
“It seems the judge was in a hurry to announce the verdict,” he said.
Zulfiqar Bukhari, the chief spokesperson for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI, also confirmed the conviction and sentencing.
Political economist Parakala Prabhakar has described the exit poll results as “fudged figures”, saying that those would benefit the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) only. “False predictions were given with the sole objective of helping the NDA in rigging during the counting,” alleged Mr. Prabhakar, after releasing a book titled ‘Avineeti Chakravarthi Narendra Modi’ penned by former Minister Vadde Shobanadreeswara Rao, here, on June 2 (Sunday).