Imran Khan was arrested on Saturday shortly after an Islamabad trial court found the former Pakistan prime minister guilty of “corrupt practices” in the Toshakhana corruption case.
The case alleges that Khan “deliberately concealed” details of the gifts he retained from the Toshakhana, a repository where presents handed to government officials from foreign officials are kept, during his time as the prime minister and proceeds from their reported sales.
The verdict, issued by Additional District and Sessions Judge Humayun Dilawar, comes as a big blow to the 70-year-old Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief who has been arrested for the second time in three months.
Following is a timeline of the main developments in the Toshakhana case:
August 2022: National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf sent the Toshakhana case against Khan to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in accordance with the Articles of the Constitution.
September 19, 2022: ECP reserved judgment in the case.
October 21, 2022: The ECP ruled that Khan made “false statements and incorrect declarations” about the gifts and disqualified him under the Constitution.
November 21, 2022: The ECP moved a session court in Islamabad for criminal proceedings against Khan.
May 10, 2023: The trial court indicted Khan.
July 4, 2023: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) overturned the trial court's ruling on the maintainability of the case and directed it to rehear the petitioner and decide the matter within seven days.
July 8, 2023: Judge Humayun Dilawar declared the Toshakhana case against Khan as maintainable.
August 2, 2023: The trial court rejected the list of witnesses presented by Khan.
August 4, 2023: Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Aamer Farooq referred the matter back to the trial court with a direction to re-examine the jurisdiction and any procedural lapse in the filing of the complaint by the Election Commission.
August 5, 2023: Judge Dilawar found Khan guilty of “corrupt practices” in the Toshakhana case and sent the PTI chief to jail for three years.
The record of Toshakhana gifts made public by the government in March this year shows that public officeholders in Pakistan have an unmistakable fondness for wristwatches.
From politicians to bureaucrats to military personnel, it appears almost everyone succumbed to the allure of luxury watches, although the gifts they received ranged from jewellery, antiques, luxury cars to weapons.
The record shows that watches were among the most gifted items, with a total of 1,262 watches (including pocket and table watches) appearing in the Toshakhana records since 2002, The Dawn newspaper said in a report in March.
According to the report, Khan, during his tenure as prime minister, went away with seven wristwatches worth Rs 96.6 million, landing the second spot across all three parties in terms of the assessed value of watches retained.
He paid Rs 21 million to procure these watches, five of which were Rolex and one Graff, the report said.