Daily Times

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday urged Imran Khan to file a defamation case against Financial Times for publishing an indicting article. The prime minister, in posts on his Twitter handle, said, “If he doesn’t & I am sure he wouldn’t, it will prove one more time how brazenly he is lying & cheating the people of Pakistan. “Could it get more damning? The charade of self-proclaimed honesty & righteousness has been busted by the Financial Times story that details the flow of foreign funding into PTI bank accounts. Imran Niazi is a bunch of massive contradictions, lies & hypocrisy. Screaming facts!” Talking to the media outside the ECP office in Islamabad, senior PML-N leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said that the government has requested the election commission to reveal the details of funds that Khan’s party received so people can see it for themselves. “An institution like the Financial Times has reported that Arif Naqvi held a match in London. Arif Naqvi told the participants that their participation money would go to a charity.” The former prime minister alleged that Naqvi donated Rs55 million into the bank accounts of PTI. “…but PTI provided no trace of those transactions.” He further alleged that Khan’s party received funds from companies in the United States that are established in California and Texas.

“If Khan’s hands are clean, he should provide details [of transactions] since day one.” Meanwhile, leaders of the ruling coalition from the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) met with senior officials of the Election Commission Pakistan (ECP), including the chief election commissioner (CEC) on Friday, in an effort to convince the electoral body to announce its verdict in the prohibited funding case involving the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI). Addressing a press conference after the meeting, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said that the joint delegation spoke with ECP officials and urged them to “decide the case of prohibited foreign funding as soon as possible”. “The prohibited funding case has been ongoing for eight years,” he said and added that, “the election law says that if a party takes money from a foreign individual, it has to be declared”.