Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan receives 14-year jail term day after receiving 10-year sentence
Imran Khan and his wife have both been sentenced to 14 years in jail, just a day after the former Pakistan PM received a 10-year term for leaking state secrets.
Khan, who was toppled as PM in 2022, and his wife Bushra Bibi were handed the jail terms on Wednesday for a graft case. The former cricketing great is already serving a three-year sentence in jail after being convicted of corruption.
The BBC reports that Khan’s sentences are expected to served concurrently.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.The latest 14-year jail term, which relates to allegations that Khan and his wife had illegally sold state gifts for personal profit, comes just nine days before the country’s general election.
The previous day’s sentencing pertained to allegations that Khan had made public contents of a secret cable sent by the country’s ambassador in Washington to the government in Islamabad.
Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), said both Khan and former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had been sentenced to 10 years each by a special court for the leaking charge.
It said the party would challenge the decision and called it a “sham case”.
“We don’t accept this illegal decision,” Khan’s lawyer Naeem Panjutha posted on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
Wednesday’s sentencing marks the third conviction for the embattled former cricket star in recent months. He was previously sentenced to three years in a corruption case. While his jail term was suspended as he challenged the corruption conviction, it had already ruled him out of the country’s general elections next week.
Despite being ruled out of the election, Khan’s legal team was hoping to get him released from jail, where he has been since August last year away from the public eye.
Khan has been fighting dozens of cases since he was ousted from power in a parliamentary vote of no confidence in 2022.
Khan says the cable was proof of a conspiracy by the Pakistani military and US government to topple his government in 2022 after he visited Moscow just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Washington and the Pakistan military deny the accusations.
The former prime minister has previously said the contents of the cable appeared in the media from other sources.
