Pakistan’s former PM Khan barred from public office

Election commission finds former prime minister ‘guilty of corrupt practices’

The Election Commission of Pakistan on Friday disqualified former Prime Minister Imran Khan from holding a public office, following a case against him for failing to declare assets he earned from the sale of state gifts.

Khan was accused of misusing his position to purchase and sell gifts received during state visits abroad that were worth more than 140 million Pakistani rupees ($635,497).

A five-member election tribunal announced the verdict in the

Toshakhana case against Khan under Article 63 (1) P, ruling that the former premier was found “guilty of corrupt practices.”

The article states that a person shall be disqualified from being elected or chosen as, and from being, a member of parliament, if “he is for the time being disqualified from being elected or chosen as a member of the Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) or of a provincial assembly under any law for the time being in force.”

Members of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party said they were not surprised by the verdict and that the party would challenge it in a high court.

“We knew because they will announce a verdict not on the basis of law, but on the basis of politics, so this verdict is not unexpected,” PTI’s Asad Umar told reporters outside the ECP office.

“But let me convey it to them and whoever stands by them that your dream of ‘minus one’ for Imran Khan will never come true.”

Khan has been embroiled in the Toshakhana case since April when Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said his predecessor had sold state gifts worth $635,497 in Dubai. Toshakhana is a repository for gifts received by a head of state from foreign countries.

Multiple references were filed against Khan, accusing him of buying items from the Toshakhana to sell in the market at higher costs. A major charge was that the former premier failed to declare some of the earnings in his annual statement of assets submitted before the ECP.

Under Pakistani law, lawmakers are required to declare their assets with the ECP every year.

AP Supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party block a road in Hyderabad during a protest against the election commission’s decision to disqualify their leader.