ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founding chairman Imran Khan, on Monday, reiterated that he has no contact with ‘establishment’.
“Whenever we talk to the establishment, it will be for the country and rule of law”, he said while talking to reporters informally at Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi, after the hearing of the Al-Qadir Trust case against him and his wife Bushra Bibi. He said that people love the army as it protects them.
When he was asked that there are reports after contact between Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur, Azam Swati met with you and then you cancelled the August 22 public gathering, he said that the government is telling a lie. “I do not even read news related to them,” he said.
He said that the cell in which he has been kept is warm like an oven due to which he sweats a lot. Despite that I do not want any relief, he said.
The former prime minister said that if anything happened to him Chief of the Army Staff and Director General Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) would be responsible as the staff posted with me has been changed for the fourth time.
During the hearing, Bushra Bibi came to the rostrum and complained to the judge that there were rats in her room.
I have been complaining about the rats for the last three months, she said.
The judge summoned the deputy superintendent to jail following the complaint of Bushra Bibi and ordered him to resolve the issue.
Earlier, the Accountability Court judge, Nasir Javed Rana, while hearing the £190 million National Crime Agency (NCA) scam commonly known as the Al-Qadir Trust case, expressed annoyance over the absence of the defence counsel for cross-examination of a prosecution witness and investigation officer (IO) of the case for the 10th time.
The judge remarked that the accused talked to the media at every hearing and met with his party leadership. Khan’s lawyer Barrister Ali Zafer, Naeem Haider Panjhuta and Sher Afzal Marwat and others appeared before the court.
The court later granted a last chance to the defence and adjourned the hearing till August 29.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024