Pakistan Tehreek-i-insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan denied accusations of money laundering and tax evasion during hearing of a petition filed in the Supreme Court (SC) seeking disqualification of the PTI chief and party secretary-general Jehangir Tareen.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader from Rawalpindi, Hanif Abbasi, filed a petition in the apex court earlier in Novemeber seeking disqualification of Imran Khan and Jehangir Tareen for not disclosing before the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) their assets and offshore companies as well as allegedly running the party through foreign aid.
"All accusations are false and incorrect," Khan said in his reply, adding that Abbasi had malafide intentions.
The PTI chief called for the petition to be dismissed and a fine to be imposed on Abbasi.
Khan claimed that he bought land in Bani Gala for in 2002 for Rs435 million.
"I made the advance payment myself, which was about Rs 6.1m. The rest was paid off by Jemima Khan," the party chief said in his reply, adding that he has the documents to prove the transaction took place.
Additionally, he said, his flat in London cost him about 117,000 pounds and that he had paid for it from money earned abroad via his offshore company Niazi Services Limited (NSL).
"I sold that flat for 715,000 pounds and gave all the money after tax deduction to Jemima in 2003," he said. The final amount that he gave Jemima was around 690,307 pounds, he said.
The PTI chief called out Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), asking why it is investigating his taxes after 13 years.
"I have been paying all my taxes for three decades now. I have never lied about the property I own," he claimed.
Abbasi's petition
The PML-N leader in his petition alleged that Imran Khan had violated the Income Tax Ordinance (ITO) 1979 by not declaring his offshore company, Niazi Services Limited (NSL), in a statement of assets and liabilities submitted to the ECP while filing his nomination papers for contesting different general elections, including that of 2013.
The petition said the NSL was alive till October 2015, but Imran Khan failed to disclose his ownership interest in the company and later publicly admitted that he had incorporated the offshore company to avoid UK taxes.
It further the PTI chief had misstated in statement of assets and liabilities that the NSL owned a flat No165, Draycott Avenue, London.
The petition alleged that the PTI chief had purchased the Draycott flat in 1983 when he had negligible earnings and the flat remained undeclared until the Pakistan government announced an amnesty scheme in 2000.
The petition alleged that this established the fact that the PTI chairman had purchased the flat with the money on which he had not discharged his tax liabilities accrued under the ITO for many years.
In 2000-02, the petition alleged, Imran Khan gifted an amount of Rs6.5m to his ex-wife Jemima Khan from which she had purchased a 45-kanal land in Mohra Noor, Banigala. Jemima Khan also purchased a 255-kanal in Mohra Noor for Rs36.9m.
She later transferred the land to Imran Khan who declared it as a gift in his wealth statements filed with the FBR.
Such transaction established that the gift-back arrangement was utilised to launder his black money, the petition claimed.
Read more: PML-N leader moves SC for disqualification of Imran,Tareen
