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Pakistan’s ousted PM’s petition challenging three-year jail term fixed for hearing next week

Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan (C) leaves after appearing in the Supreme Court in Islamabad, Pakistan, on July 26, 2023. (Photo courtesy: AFP/File)
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Updated 16 August 2023
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Pakistan’s ousted PM’s petition challenging three-year jail term fixed for hearing next week

  • The PTI party says its leader has been deliberately denied his legal and constitutional rights since his arrest
  • Khan’s lawyers maintain they are not getting proper access to their client, though there was no legal obstacle
Updated 16 August 2023
Arab News Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said on Wednesday the country’s higher judiciary had fixed a petition challenging his three-year imprisonment on graft charges for hearing next week.

Khan, who was ousted from power in a parliamentary no-trust vote last year in April, was convicted by a local court for illegally selling state gifts which he received during his term in the country’s top political office.

His party reiterated earlier in the day he was not getting all his legal and constitutional rights after being arrested from his Lahore residence in what has come to be known as the Toshakhana – or state repository – case more than 10 days ago.

“Chairman PTI Imran Khan’s application for suspension of lower court decision against Toshakhana judgment fixed for hearing on August 22, 2023,” the party circulated a brief message among the media community on Wednesday.

“While being in solidarity confinement, Chairman PTI has not yet been given proper access, legal team wasn’t allowed to meet even today & they’re filing another petition in Islamabad High Court,” it added.

The PTI noted there were no legal obstacles preventing Khan’s lawyers from meet him, adding they were perfectly within their right to interact with their client under the prison manual and the constitution.

However, in a social media post, it maintained the former PM had been deprived of his rights deliberately despite being the founding leader of the country’s largest political party.

Khan developed significant differences with the country’s military since his ouster from power which he attributed to a “foreign conspiracy.”

The former prime minister’s political faction faced a crackdown after resorting to violent protests and targeting government and military installations earlier this year in May when he was briefly arrested from a court in Islamabad on corruption allegations.

Topics: Imran Khan #pakistan Toshakhana case

PM orders immediate rebuilding of girls school bombed by militants in northwestern Pakistan

Updated 6 sec ago
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PM orders immediate rebuilding of girls school bombed by militants in northwestern Pakistan

  • Attackers beat up school guard before setting off explosives at private Aafia Islamic Girls Model School in North Waziristan
  • Pakistan witnessed multiple attacks on girls schools until 2019, especially in Swat Valley and elsewhere in northwest
Updated 6 sec ago
Aamir Saeed

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday ordered that a girls school bombed by militants this week in a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban should be immediately rebuild, vowing to provide women with equal opportunities for education.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack late Wednesday that targeted the only girls school in Shawa, a town in the North Waziristan district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan.

Suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who have targeted girls schools in the province in the past, saying that women should not be educated.

The TTP group was evicted from northwest Pakistan’s Swat and other regions in recent years after successive military operations. The TTP are a separate group but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in 2021. The Taliban takeover in neighboring Afghanistan has emboldened the Pakistani Taliban, the Pakistan government says. 

“Prime Minister directed to immediately identify the people involved in the incident and ensure that they are punished,” a statement from Sharif’s office said, adding that the PM had instructed that the part of the school destroyed in the attack be “immediately” rebuilt at government expense.

“The nefarious ambitions of terrorists to stop the education of girls will never be allowed to succeed,” the statement quoted Sharif as saying. “Terrorist elements who are trying to create obstacles in the education of the daughters of the nation will be brought to justice.”

Pakistan witnessed multiple attacks on girls schools until 2019, especially in the Swat Valley and elsewhere in the northwest where the Pakistani Taliban long controlled the former tribal regions. In 2012, the insurgents attacked Malala Yousafzai, a teenage student and advocate for the education of girls who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the latest incident, police said the attackers first beat up the school guard before setting off the explosives at the private Aafia Islamic Girls Model School, which has 150 students.

In a statement, Abdullah Fadil, the UNICEF representative in Pakistan, said the “destruction of a girls’ school in a remote and underserved area is a heinous crime detrimental to national progress.” He cited Sharif’s statement on Wednesday declaring an education emergency and pledging to work toward enrolling 26 million out-of-school children.

With inputs from AP

Topics: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Giles schools

Pakistani police prevent pro-Palestinian protesters from moving toward US embassy in Islamabad

Updated 15 min 45 sec ago
AP
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Pakistani police prevent pro-Palestinian protesters from moving toward US embassy in Islamabad

  • Police used batons on demonstrators who briefly blocked a key road and later staged a sit-in near a high-security area 
  • Students from the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan party posted videos on social media, claiming they were beaten by police 
Updated 15 min 45 sec ago
AP

ISLAMABAD: Police in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad on Friday prevented a pro-Palestinian rally by a religious party from moving toward the US Embassy, where demonstrators wanted to stage a sit-in protesting Israel’s strikes in Gaza.

Police used batons on the demonstrators, angering hundreds of rallygoers who briefly blocked a key road and later staged a sit-in near a high-security area where foreign embassies and the offices of president, prime minister and parliament are located.

Students from the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan party posted videos on social media, claiming they were beaten by police who did not allow them to go toward the American embassy for a peaceful rally to denounce the Israeli strikes on Gaza.

Demonstrators held banners and posters with slogans opposing Israel and the United States and in support of the Palestinians. Organizers vowed to continue raising their voices for the Palestinians.

According to police, officers were negotiating with demonstrators to end the sit-in.

Topics: pro-Palestinian protesters

Downside risks for Pakistan remain exceptionally high — IMF

Updated 30 min 49 sec ago
Reuters
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Downside risks for Pakistan remain exceptionally high — IMF

  • Lender says while government has indicated intention to continue reforms, political uncertainty remains significant
  • Policy slippages and lower external financing could undermine path to debt sustainability, put pressure on exchange rate
Updated 30 min 49 sec ago
Reuters

KARACHI: Downside risks for the Pakistani economy remain exceptionally high, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Friday in its staff report on the country, ahead of talks with the fund on a longer term program.

An International Monetary Fund mission is expected to visit Pakistan this month to discuss a new program, ahead of Islamabad beginning its annual budget-making process for the next financial year.

“Downside risks remain exceptionally high. While the new government has indicated its intention to continue the SBA’s policies, political uncertainty remains significant,” said the fund in its staff report following the second and final review under the standby arrangement (SBA).

The fund added that political complexities and high cost of living could weigh on policy, adding that policy slippages, together with lower external financing, could undermine the narrow path to debt sustainability and place pressure on the exchange rate.

The IMF also said higher commodity prices and disruptions to shipping, or tighter global financial conditions, would also adversely affect external stability for the cash-strapped nation.

The fund stressed the need for timely post-program external financing disbursements.

Pakistan last month completed a short-term $3 billion program, which helped stave off sovereign default, but the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has stressed the need for a fresh, longer term program.

Pakistan narrowly averted default last summer, and its $350 billion economy has stabilized after the completion of the last IMF program, with inflation coming down to around 17 percent in April from a record high 38 percent last May.

It is still dealing with a high fiscal shortfall and while it has controlled its external account deficit through import control mechanisms, it has come at the expense of stagnating growth, which is expected to be around 2 percent this year compared to negative growth last year.

Pakistan is expected to seek at least $6 billion and request additional financing from the Fund under the Resilience and Sustainability Trust. 

Topics: International Monetary Fund

Gang mastermind, extradited from Pakistan, jailed for life for UK police officer killing

Updated 10 May 2024
AFP
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Gang mastermind, extradited from Pakistan, jailed for life for UK police officer killing

  • Piran Ditta Khan fled UK after Sharon Beshenivsky was shot at close range in Bradford in 2005
  • Khan, a former takeaway boss, was said to be the ringleader of the gang involved in the murder 
Updated 10 May 2024
AFP

LONDON: A 75-year-old man who was extradited from Pakistan was jailed for life on Friday for the murder of a British police officer nearly 20 years ago.

Piran Ditta Khan fled the country after Sharon Beshenivsky was shot at close range as she and a colleague arrived at the scene of a robbery at a travel agency in Bradford, northern England, in 2005.

Although he did not pull the trigger, prosecutors at his trial said he was equally guilty of murder as he had planned the raid and knew that loaded weapons would be used.

Judge Nicholas Hilliard at Leeds Crown Court on Friday handed Khan a life sentence with a minimum term of 40 years and told him: “You will inevitably spend the remainder of your life in custody.”

Beshenivsky, 38, had only been an officer with West Yorkshire Police for nine months before her death, which happened on her daughter Lydia’s fourth birthday.

“Every birthday is a reminder of what happened that day,” Lydia said in an impact statement read in court.

“It has recently been Mother’s Day, and while my friends are celebrating with their mums, I sadly can never do that.”

She was “too young and innocent” to understand why her mother did not return from work to celebrate her birthday, the statement added.

Judge Hilliard praised Beshenivsky’s bravery in responding to the call “when she and her colleague had no way of knowing what they would be confronted with when they got there.

“Sharon Beshenivsky’s courage and commitment to duty that day cost her her life,” he added.

The rare fatal shooting of a police officer on duty caused widespread shock and revived calls for British police to routinely carry guns. 

Khan, a former takeaway boss, was said by prosecutors to be the ringleader of the gang involved in the killing on November 18, 2005.

He remained in a lookout car during the robbery, played a “pivotal” role in planning the heist and knew that loaded firearms would be used.

As such he was as culpable of Beshenivsky’s murder “as surely as if he had pulled the trigger on that pistol himself,” prosecutors told his trial.

He claimed he was trying to recoup money owed to him by the owner of the travel agency but lawyers said there was no evidence for this.

The gang escaped with little more than £5,000.

Khan was arrested in Islamabad in January 2020 after years on the run and extradited in April 2023.

He was found guilty of murder as well as firearms offenses. He had admitted robbery.

Six other gang members have previously been jailed over the shooting, which also saw Beshenivsky’s colleague Teresa Milburn shot in the chest.

Milburn, who was 37 at the time, had joined the force two years beforehand.

Three of the men, including one who fled to Somalia but was later extradited, were jailed for life and told they would serve at least 35 years behind bars.

West Yorkshire Police Assistant Chief Constable Patrick Twiggs said members of the force “welcome the life sentence handed down to Khan.

“West Yorkshire Police will continue to honor Sharon’s memory, we still mourn the loss, we still miss her, she will be forever in our thoughts,” he added.

Topics: Gang mastermind UK Police

Pakistan shares close weekend trading at all-time high on improving economic indicators, Saudi investments

Updated 10 May 2024
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Pakistan shares close weekend trading at all-time high on improving economic indicators, Saudi investments

  • KSE-100 index went up by 427 points and closed at 73,086 points on investor optimism
  • Analysts say Saudi crown prince’s visit could see stock market cross 85,000 level this year
Updated 10 May 2024
KHURSHID AHMED   

KARACHI: Pakistan’s key stock index crossed the 73,000 mark on Friday to close the weekend trading session at an all-time high on renewed hopes of an interest rate cut and improving economic indicators as well as optimism about Saudi investments, analysts said.
 
The KSE-100 index went up by 427 points and closed at 73,086 points on investor optimism stemming from an anticipated lower inflation rate this month, which fueled speculation of an interest rate cut in the next monetary policy in June. 

Last month, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the State Bank kept the key interest rate steady at 22 percent for the seventh straight meeting.
 
“Pakistan stocks exchange made another new high today crossing 73,000 amid expectations that inflation may fall at a faster than expected rate,” Muhammad Sohail, CEO of Topline Securities, told Arab News, adding that optimism about Saudi investments had also played a key role in the bullish trend at the bourse in the last few days.
 
The Pakistan Stock market performed extremely well during the outgoing week and the index increased by around 1180 points.
 
“There are two to three reasons for this surge, first being the gradual improvement in Pakistan’s economic indicators,” Sheheryar Butt, Portfolio Manager at Darson Securities, said. 
 
The South Asian nation has witnessed increasing remittance by 28 percent to $2.8 billion while the central bank’s reserves soared above $9 billion, the highest in 1.5 years.
 
“Along with this, our currency is maintained at Rs278 against the US dollar and it is also stabilizing in the interbank market. We are also seeing an increase in remittances,” Butt said.
 
Pakistan saw one of the highest inflation regimes last year, with 38 percent inflation recorded in May last year, which eased to 17.3 percent this April. Pakistani analysts expect a further fall in May, renewing optimism of an interest rate cut from the current 22 percent in the upcoming monetary policy.
 
“Inflation in Pakistan is expected to decrease significantly to around 15 percent in May 2024. This substantial drop is a testament to the effective efforts of the government and central bank in curbing inflation,” Sohail added.
 
Talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a new bailout package and Saudi investment optimism have been key drivers of the stock index in recent days while the expected arrival of the Saudi Crown prince later this month is being seen as another “milestone achieving factor.”
 
“The IMF team is going to visit Pakistan and there are brighter chances for Pakistan to get a longer program with the IMF. Pakistan will easily get a program of $6-8 billion for 2-3 years,” Butt said, adding that the Saudi crown prince’s visit could see the stock market cross the 85,000 level this year.

Topics: Pakistan Stock Exchange

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