Imran Khan, others booked in foreign funding case

Imran Khan, others booked in foreign funding case

ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) Corporate Banking Circle on Tuesday lodged a case against 11 people including the former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in the foreign funding case.

According to the First Information Report (FIR), the accused nominated in the FIR has violated the Foreign Exchange Act.

Sardar Azhar Tariq, Saifullah Niazi, Syed Younas, Amir Kiyani, Tariq Sheikh, and Tariq Shafi have been nominated in the FIR.

The FIR stated that the accused are beneficiaries of the private bank account, while the PTI had an account at the local bank and the private bank manager has also been nominated in the case.

According to the text of the FIR, a bank account was created in the name of Naya Pakistan, the bank manager allowed to operate the illegal bank account and the $2.1 million were deposited by the Abraaj Group of Companies in the bank account.

It further stated that the PTI submitted Arif Naqvi s affidavit to the ECP, while the Abraaj Group also deposited money in PTI account, hence, the affidavit is false.

In August this year, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) while announcing verdict in prohibited funding case against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had ruled that the party received funds from business tycoon Arif Naqvi and from 34 foreign nationals. It went on to say that the party had taken ownership of eight accounts and kept 16 hidden.

Unknown accounts have also come to light, said the commission in its verdict, adding that hiding accounts is a "violation" of Article 17 of the Constitution.

The The electoral watchdog also decided to issue a show-cause notice to the PTI to explain why the commission should not seize the funds it received.

The commission also said that PTI chief Imran Khan had submitted a “misdeclaration” with the commission.

The Election Commission of Pakistan had reserved its verdict in prohibited funding case — previously referred to as the foreign funding case — after the conclusion of arguments from both sides of the case on June 21.

The case was filed by PTI founding member Akbar S. Babar and was pending since November 14, 2014. Babar had alleged serious financial irregularities in the party’s funding from Pakistan and abroad.

In March 2018, a scrutiny committee was constituted to examine the PTI financing. The committee submitted its report on January 4, after 95 hearings and nearly four years.

No foreign funding proved, PDM propaganda exposed: PTI leaders

PTI spokesperson on legal issues Maleeka Ali Bokhari said that this is not a foreign funding case and another PDM propaganda has been exposed.

"Headlines were made in newspapers that PTI received foreign. We have been clear that this a prohibited funding case. Today it has been proved that the biased Election commission applied Elections Act 2017 and Political Parties Ordinance 2002 on PTI and these rules are not applied on any other party."

"Today it was a big disappointment to those who were making the narrative that this is a case of foreign funding and that PTI is going to be banned," said Farrukh Habib.

While former Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Fawad Chaudhry said that PTI relies on the funds of overseas Pakistanis and questioned that why PML-N, PPP and JUI-F do not like overseas Pakistanis?

Fawad said, "PTI has relied on overseas Pakistanis and will continue to do so. ECP has admitted there’s no foreign funding involved."

"PTI is the only party that takes donations from the public while other parties have billionaires as their backers," said Fawad.