Khan and his spouse have denied accusations that they misrepresented the worth of state presents, together with jewelry, and profited from them.
Printed On 20 Dec 2025
Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his spouse Bushra Bibi have been sentenced to 17 years in jail after a Pakistani courtroom discovered them responsible of illegally retaining and promoting helpful state presents.
The sentence, handed down on Saturday, capped a years-long saga that noticed the duo accused of promoting varied presents – together with jewelry from the Saudi Arabian authorities – at far beneath market worth. They’ve denied all expenses.
As a way to preserve presents from overseas dignitaries, Pakistani regulation requires officers to buy them at market worth and to declare earnings from any gross sales.
However prosecutors claimed that the couple profited from the objects after buying them at an artificially low value of $10,000, in contrast with their market fee of $285,521.
Khan’s supporters have been fast to denounce the ruling, along with his spokesperson Zulfikar Bukhari saying that “prison legal responsibility was imposed with out proof of intent, acquire, or loss, relying as an alternative on a retrospective reinterpretation of guidelines”.
His get together, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, wrote on social media that the proceedings have been a “sham” and criticised worldwide media protection of the case.
The 73-year-old former chief served as Pakistan’s prime minister from 2018 till April 2022, when he was ousted in a no-confidence vote.
He was imprisoned beginning in August 2023 on varied expenses of corruption and revealing state secrets and techniques, all of which he has denied and claimed to be politically motivated. He has been acquitted of some expenses.
An internationally well-known cricket participant within the heyday of his sporting profession, Khan remains popular in Pakistan, along with his imprisonment resulting in protests all through the final two years.
The previous chief is now confined to a jail within the metropolis of Rawalpindi and “saved inside on a regular basis”, his sister, Uzma Khanum, told journalists earlier this month.
Khanum, a physician who was the primary member of the family allowed to go to Khan in weeks, described him as “very offended” concerning the isolation, saying that he thought of the “psychological torture” of imprisonment to be “worse than bodily abuse”.
