when they were indicted last year<\/a>. They were accused of selling the gifts, including jewelry from Saudi Arabia\u2019s government, at prices far below their market value while he was in office. <\/p>\nProsecutors said Khan and his wife declared the value of the gifts at a little over $10,000, far below their actual market value of $285,521, allowing them to purchase the items at a reduced price.<\/p>\n
Under Pakistani law, for government officials and politicians to keep gifts received from foreign dignitaries, they must buy them at the assessed market value and declare any proceeds earned from selling them.<\/p>\n
Khan\u2019s spokesperson, Zulfiquar Bukhari, said the verdict in the graft case ignored basic principles of justice. In a statement, he said that the \u201ccriminal liability was imposed without proof of intent, gain, or loss, relying instead on a retrospective reinterpretation of rules. <\/p>\n
Bukhari said the court ruling \u201craised serious questions about the fairness and impartiality of the process, turning justice into a tool for selective prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Khan\u2019s opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party denounced the verdict in a statement, calling it \u201ca black chapter in history,\u201d and said Khan was present in the court when the judge announced the verdict in the Adiala prison in the city of Rawalpindi.<\/p>\n
Khan, 73, was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022 and his party is in opposition in the parliament. He has been serving multiple prison terms since 2023 on corruption convictions<\/a> and other charges that the former cricket star and his supporters have alleged are aimed at blocking his political career. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Pakistani court has convicted former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, sentencing them to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":460080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[210106,347,18057,17628,356,10407,57,4228,50,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-460079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-210106","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-bribery","11":"tag-corruption","12":"tag-courts","13":"tag-criminal-punishment","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-indictments","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-world","18":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115752099515428110","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}