By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: New witness statements have emerged in Toshakhana-2 corruption case against former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi, with an appraiser alleging he was coerced into undervaluing a luxury Bulgari jewellery set gifted by Saudi royalty, Dawn reported on Thursday.
The statements, from appraiser Sohaib Abbasi and Khan’s former personal secretary Inamullah Shah, surfaced three days after a special judge in Islamabad completed their cross-examination during a six-hour hearing inside Adiala Jail, where Khan and Bibi are detained.
The case centres on allegations that Khan and Bibi retained a high-value Bulgari set, comprising a necklace, earrings, bracelets and rings, presented by the Saudi royal family, by acquiring it at a fraction of its worth through the state gift repository known as Toshakhana. Prosecutors say the move caused substantial losses to the national treasury.
Abbasi, one of the two key prosecution witnesses, admitted in his testimony to appraising the set at Rs5 million, a figure he said was deliberately low due to pressure from Shah. “I was handed over the responsibility of the assessment of the set on May 25, 2022 by the Section Officer of [the] Cabinet Division,” Abbasi stated, according to the court documents.
He recounted that Shah later visited his office and conveyed that “the two accused facing trial want to retain the jewellery set”, insisting the valuation be capped at Rs5 million. Abbasi claimed Shah warned him of being “blacklisted from every government department” if he did not comply, prompting him to submit a falsified report.
Abbasi joined the investigation on May 23 this year and sought a pardon for his role in the undervaluation, the statements show.
Shah, testifying as the second witness, corroborated the account. “I asked Sohaib Abbasi to make [an] undervalued assessment (of the set) and he agreed to that,” Shah said. He added that he had remained in Abbasi’s office for 30-45 minutes during the visit concerning the jewellery in question.
In further testimony, Shah disclosed receiving dual salaries while serving in overlapping roles with Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and the government. “I was appointed Comptroller of the PM house [from] 2019 to 2021,” he said, before revealing: “In that very time, I was also receiving salary additionally from PTI Central Secretariat.”
Shah was removed from his government post that same year, not over the double payments but “due to Bushra Bibi’s disapproval”, he told the court. He attributed her stance to suspicions that his brother maintained close ties with former PTI leader Jahangir Tareen, a onetime Khan ally who later fell out with the party.
The proceedings took place before a Special Judge Central in Islamabad, to whom the case was assigned after an Islamabad court in July 2024 barred the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) from pursuing the Toshakhana reference against Khan and Bibi. That ruling shifted jurisdiction to a Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) court, with the special judge now tasked to rule on the couple’s pending bail pleas.
Khan, 72, has been held at Adiala Jail since his August 2023 arrest in a separate graft case involving the recovery of 190 million pounds. Bibi is imprisoned alongside him in that matter. Khan also faces multiple trials under Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Act linked to the violent protests of May 9, 2023, following his initial detention, which saw attacks on military installations and government buildings.
The Toshakhana cases have dogged Khan since leaving office in 2022, spotlighting rules requiring officials to deposit or declare state gifts. Previous convictions in related matters have been suspended or overturned on appeal, but Khan remains behind bars amid a broader crackdown on his PTI party.
The special judge has yet to issue a verdict in Toshakhana-2. A hearing on the bail applications is scheduled for next week.
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