The former prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, was dealt a blow on Wednesday when the Supreme Court of Pakistan denied his request to halt criminal proceedings against him in the Toshakhana corruption case.
The case concerns claims that the leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party “deliberately concealed” information about gifts he kept from the Toshakhana (a storage facility where gifts given to government officials by foreign officials are kept) and the reported sales proceeds while serving as prime minister.
Khan is accused of abusing his position as prime minister from 2018 to 2022 by purchasing and reselling presents worth over Rs 140 million (USD 635,000) that he acquired on official state visits overseas.
According to Geo News, Khan, 70, appealed to the Supreme Court after the Islamabad High Court (IHC) rejected his request for relief.
In the Toshakhana case, the former prime minister was disqualified on October 21 of last year for “false statements and incorrect declaration” by the Election Commission of Pakistan.
Khan, who has denied all allegations of misdeclaration of gifts, was indicted in May after a trial judge rejected his petition challenging the maintainability of the case.
Khan appealed the lower court’s ruling to the IHC, which remanded the case there for further consideration. The lower court decided on July 8 that the ECP’s petition is viable, and continued its case against the ex-prime minister.
Justice Yahya Afridi, one half of the two-person bench, stated at Wednesday’s hearing that the Supreme Court will not get involved in the trial court’s proceedings on the Toshakhana corruption issue.
After Khan’s lawyer Khawaja Haris informed the bench that multiple petitions challenging the bench’s decision to return the matter to the trial court were pending in the high court (related to the jurisdiction of the trial court and transfer of the Toshakhana case), the bench reportedly urged the IHC to decide the petitions.
Since his ouster in April of last year following a no-confidence vote in his leadership, which he claimed was part of a US-led conspiracy targeting him because of his independent foreign policy decisions regarding Russia, China, and Afghanistan, Khan has been charged in more than 140 cases across the country.
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