The verdict in the Al Qadir Trust case has been announced and an accountability court has found former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi guilty of corruption and misuse of power and authority for personal gain. The former prime minister has been given a 14-year sentence while his wife has been sentenced to seven years in prison.
It is an open and shut case and the reasons for that are very straightforward. However, before delving into that, it is worth recounting what the case was all about.
One of the key players in the case is real estate developer Malik Riaz. The UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) in 2019 fined him 190 million pounds (which was around Rs 39.5 billion at that time). This amount was paid by the real estate developer to settle out of court with the NCA and came with the qualifier that the outcome "did not represent a finding of guilt". That said, the fine was imposed on a property purchased by Malik Riaz for 50 million pounds, from the son of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The proceeds from the fine were returned to the Government of Pakistan on account of the fine representing a penalty for the acquisition of a property using ill-gotten wealth.
Malik Riaz was allowed by the PTI-led government of then-Prime Minister Imran Khan to use the 190 million pounds to partly clear a penalty imposed on him by the Supreme Court of Pakistan
The matter doesn't end there - and in fact, what happened to the 190 million pounds once it was returned to the Government of Pakistan is what the Al Qadir Trust case is all about. For some inexplicable reason, and which would be seen as completely outside the pale of the law of any country, Malik Riaz was allowed by the PTI-led government of then-Prime Minister Imran Khan to use the 190 million pounds to partly clear a penalty imposed on him by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. A special cabinet meeting was also convened and the agenda was to approve the diversion of these funds to the Supreme Court on account of the real estate developer so that he would pay off part of the penalty of some of the Rs 460 billion that the Supreme Court had ordered him to pay the government for the land he had in his possession in Bahria Town Karachi.
This is as about an open and shut case as you can possibly get. What Malik Riaz was allowed, or rather facilitated by the PTI-led government to do is akin to someone who has been fined for criminal wrongdoing being allowed to use that fine for his gain and benefit. In this particular case, it was Malik Riaz and he was allowed to use the money that he had paid as a fine to clear off part of his obligation imposed by the Supreme Court - and the Court had given that directive because it had come to the assessment that the land in question that was in his possession under the name of Bahria Town was not paid for and for that he needed to pay Rs 460 billion (not a small amount by any stretch of the imagination). Malik Riaz had willingly accepted that and agreed to pay the amount.
Once the-then PTI government facilitated Malik Riaz in this manner, then he donated over 450 acres of land from one of his developments near Islamabad to the Al Qadir Trust for the purpose of setting up a university. The Al Qadir Trust was founded by Imran Khan as part of an initiative to provide education to children of low-income families. That is indeed a worthy objective but the manner in which the land was donated by Malik Riaz after the PTI government allowed him to use the very money that he had paid as a fine to the UK National Crime Agency to (partly) clear an obligation to the Supreme Court for his Bahria Town land leaves little to the imagination that it is a case of quid pro quo and that this was possible only through the (mis)use of power and authority by the then prime minister. Some ministers who attended the special cabinet meeting in 2019 where the permission was allowed have said that there was no debate or discussion and that they were uncomfortable with the agenda but that it was bulldozed.
As for the talks between the government and the PTI, the conviction of the party founder and his wife is likely to have a major impact. The PTI has said it will be appealing the conviction but it will have to do more than that by way of reaction, especially to placate its base which has been conditioned (through the social media narratives of the party) to see any opposition to or criticism of the leader as worthy of derision and hate.