MBABANE:Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi have been sentenced to 17 years in prison after a Pakistani court found them guilty of illegally retaining and selling valuable state gifts, Aljazeera reported.
It has been reported that, the sentence handed down on Saturday, capped a years-long saga that saw the duo accused of selling various gifts-including jewellery from the Saudi Arabian Government at far below market value, they have denied all charges.
In order to keep gifts from foreign dignitaries, Pakistani law requires officials to purchase them at market value and to declare profits from any sales. But prosecutors claimed that the couple profited from the items after purchasing them at an artificially low price of $10,000, compared with their market rate of $285,521,” reads the Aljazeera report in part.
Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan, right, and Bushra Bibi, his wife, speak to the media before signing documents to submit a surety bond for bail in different cases, at the Lahore High Court in Lahore, Pakistan, on July 17, 2023 [File: K M Chaudary/AP]