In relation to the £190 million case, a federal cabinet subcommittee proposed on Wednesday that the names of Bushra Bibi, Imran Khan, and 27 other individuals be added to the Exit Control List. Imran Khan is the chairperson of Pakistan Tehreel-e-Insaf (PTI).
In a post on X, the Ministry of Interior stated that interim Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti and other officials attended the subcommittee meeting that took place today.
وفاقی کابینہ کی ذیلی کمیٹی برائے ای سی ایل کا اجلاس، وزیر داخلہ سرفراز احمد بگٹی اور وزیر مواصلات و ریلویز شاہداشرف تارڑ کی اجلاس میں شرکت، اجلاس میں وزارت داخلہ اور دیگر اداروں کے افسران کی بھی شرکت،اجلاس میں ای سی ایل سے متعلق مختلف نوعیت کے کیسز کا جائزہ لیا گیا. pic.twitter.com/uMXL8NfEbr
— Ministry of Interior GoP (@MOIofficialGoP) November 22, 2023
The post further stated that the committee suggested including 41 names that were submitted to the ECL by different agencies and organizations.
“On the recommendation of NAB, names of 29 people, including Imran Khan, were recommended to be put on the ECL in the £190 million scandal.”
Additionally, suggestions were made to strike 13 names from the ECL. The federal cabinet has been tasked with final approval of the suggestions given today.
The case involving the £190 million (about Rs60 billion) settlement concerns the money of a real estate magnate who was apprehended by UK authorities in 2019 while Imran was the prime minister. The money that was found was reported to the Pakistani authorities by the UK government.
In this case, the infamous May 9 arrest of the former prime minister was the first.
Then-interior minister Rana Sanaullah stated that the money belonged to the Pakistani people and should have been placed in the national exchequer during a press conference on Imran’s arrest in the case at the time. “Instead, Shahzad Akbar, who was the prime minister’s adviser at the time, formed the Al-Qadir Trust through a deal he carried out,” he asserted.
The minister stated that the Al-Qadir Trust was the registered owner of about 458 kanals of land in Sohawa and another 240 kanals in Bani Gala.
About seven or eight months prior, according to Sanaullah, he had given the PTI head the specifics of the two properties and had asked him to explain whether Imran had not founded the Al-Qadir Trust in order to conceal his corruption.
The PTI leader and his spouse Bushra Bibi, according to Sanaullah, are the only two trustees of the trust.
According to him, Akbar received Rs2 billion for his efforts, and the 240 kanals of land in Bani Gala, which is estimated to be worth between Rs5-7 billion, is registered in the name of Farah Gogi, a close friend of Imran Khan’s wife.
He added that the money ended up in the Supreme Court’s bank account, where the accused property tycoon was being tried, rather than being deposited into the national treasury, as it should have been. He said that the money was actually returned to the accused in a convoluted way intended to deceive the public.
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