Pakistan PM Sharif urges poll body to announce verdict on ‘foreign funding’ case

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday urged the country’s election commission to announce a long-delayed verdict in the case of “foreign funding” against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

The case has been pending since November 14, 2014, and it was filed by PTI founding member Akbar S Babar who had alleged there were financial irregularities in the funding received by the former prime minister Imran Khan-led party, from Pakistan and abroad.

Sharif alleged that for long a free pass had been given to the PTI chief for his repeated and shameless attacks on state institutions, which has hurt the country, the Dawn newspaper reported.

“I urge the Election Commission of Pakistan to announce long-delayed judgment on PTI foreign funding case. For long has Imran Niazi been given a free pass despite his repeated and shameless attacks on state institutions. Impunity given to him has hurt the country,” Shehbaz said in a tweet.

ECP submits report on PTI’s foreign funding case

On January 4 this year, the ECP’s scrutiny committee submitted its report on the PTI’s foreign funding case after 95 hearings. The ECP’s committee was formed in March 2018.

The report was based on eight volumes of records collected through the State Bank of Pakistan, proved that the PTI leaders had committed the violations of funding laws by allowing the collection of millions of dollars and billions of Pakistani Rupees without any source and details from foreigners, as per reports by Dawn.

Earlier, on April 14, Islamabad High Court Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani rejected the request to prevent giving access to case records to PTI’s Babar and a request to remove him from the foreign funding case proceedings.

Pakistan election body on June 21 reserved its verdict in the foreign funding case against Imran Khan’s PTI.

During the hearing, petitioner Babar’s financial expert, Arsalan Wardak, pointed out that it was an “established fact” that money was received from Britain. He also highlighted that no one was aware of the origins of the money received from Canada, Dawn newspaper reported.

“Funds were received from Wootton Cricket Limited for which the registration number has been provided. Another USD 49,000 dollars were received from another company in the United Arab Emirates,” he said, adding that the PTI did not deny receiving these funds.

The financial expert also highlighted that the donor lists were missing several details. “The PTI received funds from 13 countries There is no record of the Rs20 million received at the PTI chairman’s office,” he said.