Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan submitted today, Thursday, a written response to the National Accountability Authority instead of appearing before it, while the Pakistani police continue to surround his house in Lahore, to demand the extradition of dozens of his supporters to stand trial on charges of terrorism.
Khan said that he was unable to appear in front of the Commission’s headquarters to hear his testimony about the case known as Al-Qadir University, because he was busy applying for bail in a number of cases he faces before the courts of Lahore, where he resides.
Khan added that all allegations made by the authority in the summons notice of illegal gain were false, fabricated, based on a deliberate misunderstanding of the law and politically motivated, as he described it.
Footage broadcast by activists today showed the deployment of dozens of police officers in the vicinity of Imran Khan’s house in Punjab province.
Imran Khan has been facing, since losing his prime ministership last year, several charges of corruption, and one of those charges is the acquisition of a piece of land as a bribe, known as the land of Qadir University.
Al-Qadir University is one of the projects of the “Al-Qadir Trust Foundation”, which is a social welfare institution established by Bushra Watto, wife of Imran Khan, in 2018.
The Foundation owns a piece of land of 60 acres in Jhelum, Punjab, on which Al-Qadir University is located.
The government accuses Imran Khan and his wife of obtaining this land as a bribe from Pakistan’s largest real estate mogul, Malik Riaz Hussain.
In 2019, Britain returned 190 million pounds sterling to Pakistan after Riad Hussain lost a money laundering case during a British investigation.
The Pakistani government says that Khan, instead of putting that money into the Pakistani treasury, used it to pay fines imposed on Riaz Hussain, who in return gave Imran Khan and his wife the land of Qadir University.
Khan was arrested on the charges on May 9, before being released on court-ordered bail, which was extended to May 31.
Khan’s arrest triggered a wave of violence that increased political instability in the South Asian country of 220 million people.
Pakistan is also facing its worst economic crisis ever, with the need for important financing from the International Monetary Fund delayed for months in order to avoid a balance of payments crisis.
His wife, Bushra Khan, known as Bushra Bibi, has also been released on bail until 23 May.
Khan said on Wednesday that police had surrounded his house in Lahore, in Punjab province, and that he expected to be arrested again soon, after the government demanded that he hand over his supporters, whom it accuses of attacks on the army.
The Punjab provincial government’s information minister, Amir Mir, said the government had no plans to arrest Khan after he was released on bail by court order. “All we want is for him to hand over the terrorists hiding in his house,” he said.
Khan stated that the authorities could only search his home under judicial orders and denied harboring anyone involved in the violence.
