ISLAMABAD: Imran Khan, the chairman of PTI, acknowledged that he had invested money given to the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Foundation (SKMT) in a private housing project, but he made it clear that the money has since been returned to the trust.
The information was revealed during the defamation lawsuit hearing for Rs. 10 billion that Mr. Khan brought against PML-N politician Khawaja Asif, who is currently the defense minister.
Additional District and Session Judge Umeed Ali Baloch presided over the hearing in which Khan participated via video link from Zaman Park in Lahore.
Besides, Khan admitted during the cross-examination that the SKMT board of directors had told him about the private housing society investment.
Barrister Haider Rasool questioned Khan about his stake in a building project to which the PTI chairman acknowledged the fact but said he couldn’t recall the project’s name.
Khan said that he was unable to recall but the board gave him written notice that the $3 million had been returned and the dispute was resolved.
Barrister Rasool argued that the matter was not settled as the dollar’s rate was Rs. 60 at the time of the investment and it doubled to Rs. 120 when the investment matured.
Furthermore, Khan made the jest that cross-examination would not take much time if the attorney had not sought to distort the proceedings and get right to the point after the counsel again asked the court to defer proceedings and claimed that he would finish it in a few hours at the next hearing.
If the case was handled honestly, the former premier claimed, the issue might be resolved quickly. The hearing was then postponed by the court.
It is worth noting that in 2012, Imran Khan sued Mr. Asif for defamation after making claims of embezzlement and money laundering involving the SKMT account with a lawsuit for Rs. 10 billion.
In his lawsuit, Mr. Khan cited Asif’s presser on August 1, 2012, in which the PML-N leader claimed that the PTI leader had lost a significant sum of money donated to the SKMT in “real estate gambling.”
He said that the money came to the trust as zakat, fitrana, and other types of donations.
In his declaration to the court in January 2022, Khan claimed that from 1991 to 2009, he was the SKMT’s largest individual contributor and that the trust profitably returned all of the assets in dispute.
According to Mr. Khan, “fabricated and unfounded claims” were made to erode public faith.
