FOREIGN FUNDING CASE.

ISLAMABAD    -    The Federal Investiga­tion Agency (FIA) on Saturday accused for­mer prime minister Im­ran Khan of “misusing” his interim bail on med­ical grounds to avoid the due process of law in foreign funding case against him and urged a local banking court to form a medical board for examination of the PTI chief.

The FIA also alleged the ex-premier for not cooperating with the agency in connection with the investigator into the alleged prohib­ited funds received by his party – Pakistan Teh­reek-e-Insaf (PTI), ac­cording to an application filed by FIA with Islam­abad's banking court.

Meanwhile, the court after a brief hearing of the case summoned Chairman PTI Khan for a personal appearance on February 28. It is likely that Khan, while accompanied by oth­er senior leaders of PTI will appear before the court on the fixed date.

In October 2022, the FIA’s Corporate Crime Circle in Islamabad had booked Khan and oth­er PTI leaders for get­ting “ill-gotten” money, through a United Bank Limited (UBL) account registered under the name of the PTI, from Arif Naqvi — the own­er of the Wooton Cricket Limited and the founder of Dubai-based Abraaj Group. 

Following this, a spe­cial court had granted Khan an interim bail. He later kept getting ex­tension in the bail on medical grounds, after he was injured in the gun attack during his party’s long march in Wazirabad on Novem­ber 3 last year.

FIA in its application, a copy of which is avail­able with The Nation, said that a bail plea of Khan was pending be­fore the court.

“After getting an in­terim bail, the accused is misusing the conces­sion and not appearing before this court and in fact, he is not cooperating with the process of law,” it said. It add­ed that the PTI chief neither has joined the investigation nor is he appearing before the court on one pretext or the other, till date.

FIA said that since long, the chairman PTI had been present­ing a “stereotype medical cer­tificate” of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital in La­hore contrary to the fact that he claimed that his problem was related to orthopaedic. It fur­ther said that such medical re­ports were not credible as these have been issued by the hospital owned by the accused himself.

The agency said that “the prin­ciples of fair play and justice re­quire” that the accused is to be examined by the board of expert doctors on the subject from Is­lamabad’s Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) or Poly­clinic. The application under­lined that their report could be entertained. The application in its final prayer appealed to the court to order the constitution of a medical board for the examina­tion of accused. The board may kindly be “directed to submit a report qua physical health or mo­bility of the accused in the light of injuries claimed by him on his leg in the best interest of justice,” the application concluded.