IK tells court he sold Toshakhana gifts through military secretary

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday told the court that he has sold Toshakhana gifts through his then military secretary and whom the court can summon as a witness.

The PTI chief, while recording his statement before additional sessions Judge Humayun Dilawar under section 342 Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), said that the gifts were not sold by him personally but he sold these gifts through his military secretary Brigadier Waseem Cheema, now Major General and he may be summoned as a witness in court.

Khan appears before the court along with his counsel Khawaja Haris and Barrister Gohar Ali Khan. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP)’s counsel, Saad Hassan, also appeared before the court.

At the start of the hearing, the court summoned the PTI chief to the rostrum. The court will read the questions to you and then it is your choice, whether you want to answer them or not.

The judge asked the PTI chief have you heard and understand the allegations levelled by the complainant. Khan replied that he has not heard the statement of the complainant as it was recorded in his absence. The court has not framed a charge against him in his presence, he further said, adding that there is only one accused in the Toshakhana case.

The PTI chief further said that the copy of the statement of witnesses had been provided to him during the holidays of Ashura. The ECP has not nominated anyone for filing a complaint, he said, adding that the ECP filed the complaint after 120 days stipulated time in Section 137 of the Election Act, 2017, and is not entertainable on this ground as well.

Khan said that it is correct that statements of assets and liabilities for the years, 2017,2018,2019,2020, and 2021 are filed to the ECP. The National Assembly speaker forwarded a reference to the ECP which is based on maliciously false allegations, he said, adding that the law was incorrectly interpreted in the reference sent by the speaker National Assembly against him. The reference sent against him to the ECP pertains to the years, 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 but the ECP went beyond the scope of the reference with a malafide intention in league with the PDM government.

The former premier said that it is correct that the reply does not state that sale proceeds of Rs58 million in 2019-2018 were deposited in the private bank. It is not written in the law that names of gifts should be submitted, he said, adding that there is no column in form B of the ECP for writing names of gifts.

He said that the witnesses did not submit the challan of the value of the gifts in court. He was not contacted while preparing the documents regarding gifts, he said, adding that the person who provided the documents regarding the gifts did not appear before the court as a witness, he said, adding that no person has admitted the documents regarding gifts as a witness.

The PTI chairman said that he was never asked about documents regarding the gifts mentioned in the ECP’s decision. No witness or complainant from the Cabinet Division was produced before the court, he said.

The PTI chief said that he was not required to declare four Toshakhana gifts retained by him during 2018-19 in his statements of assets and liabilities as those gifts were not in his possession. The complainant has not produced any evidence that in 2018-19 he retained these three gifts or not. He had mentioned valuable gifts in his statement of assets and liabilities for the year 2020-21 for which he paid Rs11 million, the PTI chairman said, adding that his tax consultant mentioned valuable gifts in the assets details filed in the ECP.

The challans he had submitted in 2020-21 were also submitted in Toshakhana, Cabinet Division, and the ECP. It is strange how the ECP concluded on five gifts that he had not submitted, he said. Has the ECP or the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) ever asked any recipient of Toshakhana gifts what they have done after receiving the gifts during the last 70 years? They are asking him about gifts just to disqualify him, he said.

He said that the complainant is bound to prove that he had retained the gifts which the complainant has not proved. I did not sell gifts personally, he said, adding that he sold the gifts through his then military secretary whom the court can issue notice as a witness.

He said that the ECP has never asked names of buyers regarding 2018-19. The ECP has not asked anyone the names of the buyers of Toshakhana gifts to date, he said. In 2018-19, the ECP on its own concluded that I have not deposited Rs58 million amount received in the bank, Khan said, adding that after selling the gifts, he was left with only Rs28 million.

He said that the complainant failed to prove that witness Mossadiq Anwar is the custodian of assets records. During the cross-examination, the witness, Anwar, did not present any evidence of being the custodian of the assets, he said, adding that the case is politically motivated. The complaint has been filed at the behest of the PDM government, he said.

PTI chief’s counsel Gohar Khan requested the court after his client completed his statement to grant him some time for producing witnesses. Did you not know who would be called? The judge asked the counsel. Gohar replied that the list of witnesses has so far not been prepared and time is required for preparation of the list. He requested the court to grant two days’ time for the production of the relevant witnesses.

The ECP’s counsel, Amjad Pervez, objected to the PTI’s chief request. The judge asked the PTI chief’s counsel to provide the list of witnesses by today (Wednesday) and adjourned the hearing of the case till Wednesday (today).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023