Imran says the witness is lying and calls the gifts case “fake.”

Imran Khan, the former prime minister, and his wife, Bushra Bibi, have given their testimony under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) in a case about the couple allegedly breaking the regulations for state gift repositories while Imran was prime minister.

Imran has asked if not reporting a gift under the 2018 Toshakhana policy could be enough to take legal action.

He said he got the Bulgari jewelry set as a present from the Toshakhana between May 7 and 10, 2021, when he was in Saudi Arabia. Later, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) converted this into a case, saying that he and his wife had broken the rules of gifts to get the set.

He stated that the guidelines didn’t say anything about the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) jurisdiction, thus he and his wife should be found not guilty in the “fake case.”

Imran said that false cases had been brought against him starting November 2022. He said that the prosecution’s principal witness, Inamullah Shah, couldn’t be trusted for a number of reasons.

He added that Shah had been fired from the Prime Minister’s Office for taking two salaries and was now working for Jahangir Tareen.

The declaration says that Inamullah Shah never talked about the Bulgari jewelry set while he was a witness in the first NAB case.

Bushra Bibi revealed in her statement that she had kept the Bulgari jewelry set after paying for it according to Toshakhana standards. She said she never told Inamullah Shah to undervalue the set and made it clear that he had worked at the PTI Secretariat first and then at the Prime Minister’s House.

Bushra Bibi said that even if Inamullah Shah had devalued the set and given her a benefit of Rs3.2 billion in May 2021, it doesn’t make sense that he was fired two months later, in July 2021, just for getting an extra Rs 70,000 in pay.

She claimed that the prosecution’s case falls apart because the facts are wrong. She argued that the NAB doesn’t have the authority to do anything and that a price estimate from Italy can’t be used as proof.

She also said that the NAB chairman had no right to pardon approver Sohaib Abbasi on May 23, 2024, and that the assertion that Inamullah Shah sent a message to undervalue the jewelry set was not true.

Bushra Bibi alleged that the FIA never did an investigation and broke its own standards by sending in a fake report. She also said that the witnesses Inamullah Shah and Sohaib Abbasi in the first Toshakhana case never talked about the Bulgari set.

Bushra called herself a “pardah-nasheen” and stated she had never been involved in politics or told anyone to undervalue the jewelry set. She went on to say that the Islamabad High Court (IHC) had already said in its decision that the FIA could not go after this case.

“People can’t be punished twice for the same crime, like they are in the Toshakhana cases. The FIA made this case when they couldn’t find anything in the cases of illegal fundraising and ciphers.

The court had given both the PTI founder and his wife a 29-item questionnaire under Section 342. They gave their statements in court on Friday.

The FIA said that Imran abused his power to get the jewelry set that the Saudi crown prince gave to the couple as a gift when they visited the KSA in May 2021.

There was a ring, bracelet, necklace, and a pair of earrings in the set. The investigation found that Imran and Bushra kept the set illegally.

On May 18, 2021, the deputy military secretary told the Toshakhana section officer that they needed to check the price of the present and declare it, but it was not deposited.

On May 25, 2018, Bulgari sold a Saudi franchise the necklace for 300,000 euros and the earrings for 80,000 euros. But it was impossible to figure out how much the bracelet and ring cost.

The Bulgari jewelry set was thought to be worth about Rs75,661,600 as of May 28, 2021. The necklace was worth Rs56,496,000 and the earrings were for Rs15,065,600.

The FIA said that according to Toshakhana norms, 50% of the price would be Rs35,765,800, but the jewelry set was worth less than that, which cost the national treasury Rs32,851,300.