The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday granted protective bail to former first lady Bushra Bibi till May 23 in the Al Qadir Trust case — the same case in which Imran Khan was arrested last week.

Imran’s arrest was later declared “unlawful” by the apex court after which he was granted bail in the case till May 17 by the Islamabad High Court.

Imran also accompanied his wife to the hearing today. Security guards held up a protective white sheet to cover the husband-wife duo as they arrived for the hearing.

Hearing

A two-member bench comprising Justice Shahbaz Ali Rizvi and Justice Shakil Ahmad heard the case today.

At the onset of the hearing, the court expressed disappointment over the delay caused by Bushra Bibi appearing late.

Justice Rizvi told the petitioner’s counsel, Advocate Khawaja Harris, to be careful and keep the sanctity of the court intact. “Where is the petitioner?” he asked.

“I’m sorry. The petitioner will be appearing in a bit,” the counsel responded. At this, Justice Rizvi termed it inappropriate to make the court wait, adding that such behaviour won’t be tolerated.

“We are giving you time till 2:15pm,” the judge said. “We will dismiss the plea by 2:16 pm.”

Subsequently, the hearing was adjourned for a bit.

After the hearing resumed, Justice Rizvi made it clear that the petitioner should be present in court before the hearing starts. “This is embarrassing for both the lawyer and the court.”

Bushra Bibi’s counsel told the court that he would ensure punctuality in future hearings.

Case

NAB alleges that during his time as prime minister, Imran and his wife obtained billions of rupees and land worth hundreds of kanals from Bahria Town’s Malik Riaz in return for letting the real estate tycoon adjust Rs50 billion that he paid as a settlement to a British crime agency, and which was returned to Pakistan by the UK, in lieu of a fine imposed on him by the Supreme Court.

In June 2022, leaders of the PML-N began accusing the ex-premier and his wife after an alleged audio leak, purportedly of a telephone conversation between Malik Riaz and his daughter, wherein the two could be heard talking about the supposed demands of Farah Khan aka Gogi — a friend of Imran Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi — against some alleged favours from the government of Imran Khan.

The woman, believed to be Riaz’s daughter, told her father that Farah told her that the (former) first lady had asked her not to accept a three-karat diamond ring, and was demanding a five-karat one instead.

Following the leak, Riaz had denied his role in any political matters, and in a tweet claimed that the audio clip attributed to him and his daughter was “fabricated”.

A week later on June 14, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah accused Imran and his wife of accepting billions of rupees and hundreds of kanals of land for protecting Malik Riaz’s real estate firm in a money laundering case.

Origins

It all started five years ago when The National Crime Agency (NCA) of the United Kingdom agreed to a settlement worth £190 million with the family of property tycoon Malik Riaz.

According to the statement released by the NCA, the settlement included a UK property — 1 Hyde Park Place, London, W2 2LH — valued at approximately £50 million and all the funds in the frozen accounts of Malik Riaz.

The first record of the NCA’s move to probe the property and assets belonging to Riaz in the UK surfaced in December 2018, shortly after the PTI came to power.

The crime agency in a press release dated Aug 14, 2019 stated: “The NCA has been granted freezing orders on eight bank accounts containing a total of more than £100 million, which is suspected to have derived from bribery and corruption in an overseas nation. Approximately £20m held by a linked individual was frozen following a hearing in December 2018.”

Earlier that year, the Supreme Court of Pakistan had accepted Riaz’s offer of Rs460bn as settlement dues by his real estate firm, Bahria Town Ltd, after it was found to have illegally acquired thousands of acres of land on Karachi’s outskirts in district Malir.

Hours after the NCA verdict, Malik Riaz had tweeted that the amount recovered by NCA would go to the Supreme Court against the fine worth Rs460bn.

Subsequently, the money NCA recovered from Riaz was transferred to the Supreme Court’s account, instead of the Government of Pakistan’s account. When the NCA announced its decision on Dec 3, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Accountability Mirza Shahzad Akbar had claimed that the money would directly come to the state.

It is alleged that as a quid pro quo for this settlement, Malik Riaz offered money and land to the then-premier and his wife to be used for the Al-Qadir University Trust.