ISLAMABAD: The incarcerated ex-prime minister and founding chairman Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan on Thursday categorically said that Saudi Arabia had no role in removing him from power in April 2022.

The statement comes days after controversial PTI MNA Sher Afzal Marwat claimed that Saudi Arabia played a role in removing Imran Khan from power.

However, the adviser to the chief minister Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Muzzamil Aslam, while talking to reporters after meeting Imran Khan at Adiala Jail, said that it was not in Imran Khan’s knowledge that a statement had been given on his behalf against Saudi Arabia.

He said that Khan has plainly rejected that Saudi Arabia had any role to oust him from power through a regime change operation for which he accused the US on numerous occasions, but never blamed Saudi Arabia even by mistake.

Aslam quoted Khan as saying, “It was Saudi Arabia which had given us $2 billion four months before my government was toppled. If someone who gives me $2 billion, why on earth it can topple my government?”

“A meeting of OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) had taken place on March 23, 2022, which could not have been possible with the support of Saudi Arabia as it took place in Pakistan after 17 years,” said Aslam while quoting Khan.

Speaking on the occasion, PTI-backed Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC)’s chairman Sahibzada Hamid Raza, who also called on Imran Khan in jail, said that political consultations had taken place at Adiala Jail with the ex-premier.

He said that Shibli Faraz would be the opposition leader in the Senate, after which he also submitted nomination paper with the Senate Secretariat as PTI is the majority opposition party in the house.

PTI leader Raoof Hasan said that his party had won and the enemies had lost, adding “this is the final stage. Imran Khan will soon be out of jail and become the prime minister of Pakistan”.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024