Former
Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan has been sentenced to 14 years in
prison over a corruption case, in the latest of a series of charges laid
against him.
It is the longest valid jail sentence the cricket star-turned-politician, who has been detained since August 2023, has received.
He
has faced charges in over 100 cases, ranging from leaking state secrets
to selling state gifts - all of which he has decried as politically
motivated.
The latest case has been
described by Pakistani authorities as the largest the country has seen,
though the country has seen huge financial scandals in the past, some of
which involved former leaders.
Khan
and his wife Bushra Bibi were accused of receiving a parcel of land as a
bribe from a real estate tycoon through the Al-Qadir Trust, which the
couple had set up while he was in office.
In
exchange, investigators said, Khan used £190m ($232m) repatriated by
the UK's National Crime Agency to pay the tycoon's court fines.
Khan's
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party argued that the land was donated
to the trust for a spiritual education centre and was not used for
Khan's personal gain.
In a post on X,
PTI chairman Gohar Ali Khan said that the former prime minister "has
done no wrong" and that this was a "politically motivated unfair trial".
"But [Imran Khan] will not give in, he will not give up, he will not break," he wrote.
Friday's verdict comes after multiple delays as Khan's party held talks with the government.
After his conviction on Friday, Khan told reporters in the courtroom that he would "neither make any deal nor seek any relief."
Khan's prison sentence of 14 years is the maximum that could be given in the case. He has also been fined more than £4,000.
His
wife has been sentenced to seven years and fined more than £2,000.
Bibi, who has been out on bail since last October, was taken into
custody in court after her sentence was announced.
In
2023, Khan was sentenced to three years in prison for not declaring
money earned from selling gifts he had received while in office.
Last year, Khan received a 14-year jail sentence over the selling of state gifts, and another 10 years for leaking state secrets. Both those sentences were suspended months later.
Despite being in jail and barred from holding public office, Khan still looms large over Pakistan's political scene. Last year's election saw candidates backed by Imran Khan winning the most number of seats out of all the parties.
Khan's prosecution has triggered large-scale protests by his supporters - which have been met with a crackdown from authorities. Thousands of protesters have been arrested and many injured in clashes with the police.
