Key witnesses to testify in £190m graft case

An accountability court has summoned four additional prosecution witnesses, including former principal secretary to the PM Azam Khan and former PTI leader Pervez Khattak in the £190m corruption case implicating former prime minister Imran Khan and his spouse Bushra Bibi.

Islamabad Accountability Court-I Judge Muhammad Ali Warraich resumed the hearing of the reference filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) last year within a courtroom at Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail, where Imran and Bushra are currently detained.

Imran and Bushra appeared in court as PTI’s lawyers Chaudhry Zaheer Abbas and Usman Gul completed the cross-examination of three additional prosecution witnesses: Ghulam Haider from the Asset Recovery Unit, Federal Board of Revenue Deputy Commissioner Lahore Muhammad Ali Taj, and Federal Investigation Agency Assistant Director Yasir Azeem.

At the NAB prosecutor’s request, the accountability court summoned four key witnesses for the next hearing: former Principal Secretary Azam Khan, Pervez Khattak, Zubaida Jalal, and Gohar Abbas, the Patwari of Bani Gala.

The NAB legal team, including Amjad Pervez and Sardar Muzaffar Abbasi, appeared in court. Cross-examinations of 30 witnesses have been completed, with 19 witnesses remaining.

At the beginning of the hearing, Imran Khan approached the rostrum and requested the judge to allow media personnel to sit in the front part of the courtroom, citing difficulties reporters faced in hearing court proceedings.

The judge instructed jail staff to bring the media forward, allowing media representatives to stand near the lawyers’ area for the first time. Later, the former PM and journalists sat together. Previously, during the hearings of three other cases, the media had been seated at the rear of the courtroom inside the jail.