Man with ‘corruption cases’ worth billions: Imran Khan slams new PM Shehbaz Sharif

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and other members of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) stepped down from the National Assembly on Monday, before the session on the process of electing a new prime minister began (April 11).  Shehbaz Sharif, the head of the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), is set to become the country’s new prime minister.

Imran Khan encouraged the public not to select Sharif, the head of the unified opposition while stating that he will not participate in the process of electing a new Prime Minister. Shehbaz Sharif, according to Khan, is an ‘extremely corrupt’ individual. Khan stated, as reported by the PTI party’s official Twitter account, ‘Whomever chooses and elects the Prime Minister, whoever has 16 billion and 8 billion rupees in corruption cases, cannot be a greater insult to the country. We are stepping down from the National Assembly.’

Meanwhile, a Pakistani court on Monday postponed the indictment of joint Opposition prime ministerial candidate Shehbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shehbaz in a high-profile money laundering case until April 27. The judge also extended their pre-arrest bail till the same day. As a result of the change, the PML-N president has become the new Prime Minister. According to the India-based PTI news agency, which cited a court official, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) special court on Monday allowed Shehbaz’s motion for a one-day exemption from personal attendance in court in the money laundering proceedings.

Shehbaz and his sons, Hamza and Suleman, were charged by the FIA in November 2020 under several provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Anti-Money Laundering Act. Suleman has fled to the United Kingdom. The FIA inquiry uncovered 28 benami accounts, purportedly belonging to the Shehbaz family, through which PKR 14 billion was laundered between 2008 and 2018. The FIA studied the money trail of 17,000 credit transactions and discovered that the money was maintained in ‘secret accounts’ and delivered to Shehbaz in his personal capacity.