The eight-year delayed ECP’s ruling in the PTI prohibited funding case has come at the right time for the ruling coalition that on Tuesday cheered the verdict as a validation of its attacks on the arch-rival Imran Khan.
Shortly after the ruling was delivered, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also took to his official Twitter handle and called the ousted premier "a certified liar".
He said that the “ECP verdict in the PTI [prohibited] funding case charge-sheets Imran Niazi for violating the Constitution, submitting false affidavits and accepting foreign money.”
Read Damning report on PTI funding a godsend for beleaguered PML-N
The premier said that it has “proven yet again that he is a certified liar”, saying the nation should ponder over the implications of his politics funded by foreigners.
PML-N’s supreme leader Nawaz Sharif declared PTI’s prohibited funding as the “biggest robbery in the country’s history” and called for immediate strict legal action against Imran Khan.
"It has been proven today [...] and the entire nation knows now that Imran Khan is the biggest thief in [the country's] history," he alleged while speaking to reporters in London as he extolled the ECP’s verdict as being based on complete evidence and facts.
The former prime minister censured Imran for wagging fingers at others for being thieves while his own hands were dirty from money laundering. “Imran used to give lectures to people about honesty. Today, the ECP's verdict has shown that it is actually him who is the biggest thief in history.”
"He knew that he had committed the biggest money laundering. This is the reason he kept demanding the chief election commissioner's resignation," he said.
"It has been proven today [...] and the entire nation knows now that Imran Khan is the biggest thief in [the country's] history," he alleged.
"The way Imran took money from foreign nationals proves that he was the person who brought foreign agenda into the country," Nawaz claimed.
He recalled that the PML-N had been leading the country towards progress, regretting that all the efforts went in vain because of Imran's actions. "He has ruined the economy and broken our backs.
Nawaz further demanded people such as former justice Saqib Nisar who Imran ‘sadiq’ and ‘ameen’ and initiated proceedings in the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against the PML-N should also be punished.
"All these things are present on the record. And there will be a time where all these questions will need to be answered."
"This man Imran is extremely dangerous for Pakistan," he said, adding that he should be punished as soon as possible.
Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb, while speaking to the media at a press conference, joined in the call for the PTI chairman’s resignation from his post as the party chief as she called Imran Khan “a foreign conspiracy against Pakistan”.
“The federal government will act according to the law” on the matter, she said.
Read more PTI set to file ‘judicial reference’ against CEC over ‘unlawful’ meeting
Commenting on the ECP’s verdict, former premier and PML-N leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said that “PTI made every effort to delay the verdict” but today “the decision was in front of all to see”.
Pointing at the irony of the situation Abbasi said that “those who alleged that others were part of a foreign conspiracy were, in fact, the ones funded by foreign nationals, including Indians.”
The PML-N leader also emphasised that “these are only facts before 2014” and that “whatever happened after this will also come forward”.
Terming Imran the country’s “biggest thief”, Abbasi questioned how the verdict reflected on the PTI chief's status as “truthful and trustworthy” – a nod to the Article 62 and 63 debate that surrounded the ouster of PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif in 2018.
“The law will take its path,” he added.
PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz also added insult to injury terming Imran Khan "imported".
She stated that Imran was the first politician in Pakistan's history to be "proven a liar, corrupt, money launderer and acting on the influence of external forces with irrefutable evidence in a single judgment".
PPP stalwart Farhatullah Babar hailed the CEC, ECP members, and Akbar S Babar — who filed the petition in 2014 — after the verdict.
"It’s most instructive that those painted as heroes thru relentless propaganda for years turn out to be villains. Those who stand out today in the nation’s forward march are the CEC Sikandar Sultan Raja, ECP, and Akbar S Babar," he said.
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