Imran Khan, the leader of PTI, was taken into custody on Tuesday from the premises of Islamabad High Court, where he was attending two hearings. The Islamabad Police later stated that IK was arrested in connection to the Al Qadir Trust case, which claims that he and his wife received billions of rupees and hundreds of kanals of land from a real estate company to legalize Rs50 billion that was returned from the UK during the previous PTI government.

What is the Al Qadir Trust case and how is the Imran Khan involved in it?

Background of the case

Five years ago, the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) settled a case with property tycoon Malik Riaz and his family for £190 million. This included a London property worth approximately £50 million and frozen accounts belonging to Riaz. In December 2018, the NCA announced that it had frozen eight bank accounts, containing over £100 million, suspected to have come from bribery and corruption in an overseas nation. In the same year, Pakistan’s Supreme Court accepted Riaz’s settlement offer of Rs460bn, for illegally acquiring land. After the NCA verdict, Riaz tweeted that the money recovered would go to the Supreme Court against the fine worth Rs460bn. The money was subsequently transferred to the Supreme Court’s accounts, not the Government of Pakistan’s. When questioned about the money’s origin, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Accountability Mirza Shahzad Akbar cited confidentiality clauses between the parties involved in the case, including the UK.

The charges against Imran Khan

In June 2022, an alleged audio leak surfaced, supposedly of a conversation between Malik Riaz and his daughter discussing Farah Khan’s demands for alleged favors from the previous government. Riaz denied any involvement in political matters and claimed the leaked clip was fabricated. Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah accused Imran Khan and his wife of accepting Rs5bn and hundreds of kanals of land for protecting Bahria Town in a money laundering case. The federal cabinet formed a committee to investigate the allegations. Bahria Town had donated hundreds of acres of land to Al-Qadir Trust, with Imran and Bushra Bibi as trustees, and another 240 kanals were transferred to Farah Shehzadi.

Intervention of NAB

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) asked real estate tycoon Malik Riaz and others associated with PTI Chairman Imran Khan to appear before it on Dec 1. This move is seen as an attempt to investigate and possibly take action against those suspected of financial wrongdoing or misuse of authority.

The NAB issued a notice calling on people who had information related to the case of misuse of power, financial gains, and criminal breach of trust, involving the recovery of funds from the UK and illegal sealing of its record. The notice was issued under section 19 of the National Accountability Ordinance-1999, and was addressed to individuals who are acquainted with the facts of the case.

NAB found out that Malik Riaz and some others made a deal with Britain’s National Crime Agency to return funds to Pakistan outside of the court process. This agreement is being investigated by the NAB for possible misuse of authority, financial gains, and criminal breach of trust.

Notice of the NAB stated that M/s Bahria Town donated land to Al Qadir Trust University, and since the recipients of the notice are in possession of information/evidence relating to the offense of misuse of authority, financial gains, and criminal breach of trust, they are required to appear before NAB. Additionally, there are unconfirmed reports that Imran Khan’s wife is one of the trustees of the trust.

NAB had previously sent legal notices to 21 members who worked with former prime minister Imran Khan. Some of the notable names among them are Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Murad Saeed, Pervez Khattak, Shafqat Mahmood, Shireen Mazari, Ali Haider Zaidi, Hammad Azhar and Zulfi Bukhari.

Bukhari was asked to attend a hearing by the NAB on November 29, but he did not show up for several hearings. He eventually appeared before it on January 10.

On Tuesday, former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan appeared before a court for an unrelated case and was arrested by Rangers personnel. The Interior Minister, Rana Sanaullah, later confirmed that Imran was arrested by officials of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in connection with the Al-Qadir Trust case. The minister added that there were many other corruption cases being investigated against Imran. The NAB had issued notices to Imran regarding the corruption cases against him and asked him to present himself for investigation, but he had not complied. As a result, NAB had to arrest him.