Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was hit with a fresh 14-year jail sentence on Wednesday after a state court found him guilty of graft, just one day after being handed a 10-year term on a conviction of leaking state secrets.
His wife Bushra Bibi was also sentenced to a 14-year jail term for graft; the case implicating the couple involved the illegal sale of state gifts for profit while Khan was in office, CNBC News wrote.
“Another sad day in our judicial system history, which is being dismantled,” a spokesperson for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the largest political party in the country, said in a statement.
Khan is also barred from serving in office for 10 years as part of his punishment handed down by the state’s National Accountability Bureau, which additionally imposed a fine of 1.5 billion Pakistani rupees ($5.3 million) on the former leader and his wife. Previously, many political analysts saw him as the likely winner of Pakistan’s upcoming general election on Feb. 8.
A towering figure in Pakistani politics for decades, Khan — along with his supporters — says the charges and arrests are politically motivated. It is not clear whether the 10 and 14-year-sentences will be served consecutively or concurrently, though some media reports say the terms will be concurrent.
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