ISLAMABAD: An accountability court in Pakistan is expected to announce a much-anticipated verdict today, Friday, in a case in which former prime minister Imran Khan is accused of receiving land as a bribe by misusing his office during his premiership.

The announcement of the verdict in the Al-Qadir Trust case has already been postponed thrice before, drawing criticism from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. The case involves a charitable trust set up by Khan and his third wife Bushra Khan in 2018 when he was still in office.

Pakistani authorities say the trust was a front for the couple to receive valuable land as a bribe from a real estate developer, Malik Riaz Hussain, who is one of Pakistan’s richest and most powerful businessmen. Hussain, like Khan and Bushra, denies any wrongdoing.

After the third postponement of the verdict on Jan. 13, Pakistan Information Minister Attaullah Tarar had accused Khan of using “delaying tactics” in the case and not showing up at the court for the announcement of the verdict, while

Khan’s party said the delay raised questions on merits of the trial.

“Imran Khan is being tried for establishing Al-Qadir University, which seems to scare the current regime, as they feel threatened by the very notion of an enlightened nation, equipped to determine right from wrong,” the PTI said in an X post on Friday.

Senator Talal Chaudhry, a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, said on Jan. 13 the Al-Qadir Trust case was an “open-and-shut case” and there was no possibility of a deal in it.

“Whether the decision is made today or tomorrow, it is a clear verdict, [this is] an open-and-shut case,” he said. “This is about Pakistan and there is no possibility of a pardon.”

Gohar Ali Khan, the PTI chairman and one of Khan’s lawyers, told reporters on Jan. 13 that his party had nothing to do with the postponement of the verdict.

“When decisions are based on political considerations or to put pressure, then everyone can see the writing on the wall,” Gohar said.

“We came prepared that the verdict would be released today but the judge has postponed it of his own accord.”

Authorities say the Al-Qadir Trust scheme originated with 190 million pounds repatriated to Pakistan in 2019 by Britain after Hussain forfeited cash and assets to settle a British probe into whether they were proceeds of crime. Instead of putting it in Pakistan’s treasury, Khan’s government is accused of using the money to pay fines levied by a court against Hussain for illegal acquisition of government lands at below-market value for development in Karachi.

Khan, who has been in jail since August 2023 and faces a slew of legal cases, says all charges against him are politically motivated and being backed by his political rivals led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the country’s all-powerful military. Both deny the allegations.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s national airline said Thursday that an advertisement showing a plane heading toward the Eiffel Tower was never intended to evoke the memories of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The illustration, not in video format, shows a plane superimposed over the French flag and tilted toward the Paris landmark, with the words “Paris, we’re coming today.”

The ad was posted on X by Pakistan International Airlines, or PIA, on Jan. 10, the day that the company resumed flights to European Union countries after a four-year ban by the bloc’s aviation safety agency.

Many social media users immediately decried the ad, and Pakistan’s prime minister called for an inquiry. On Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar described the ad as an act of “stupidity.”

PIA spokesman Abdullah Hafeez said Thursday that the ad, which hasn’t been deleted and has more than 21.2 million views, was only ever meant to celebrate that the airline was resuming flights to Europe, and never intended to harm 9/11 survivors or victims’ families.

Hafeez told The Associated Press that he was surprised over the criticism. But he said that “we apologize to those who feel the advertisement hurt them.

“We want to make it clear that we had no intention to hurt the feelings of anyone,” Hafeez said.

He said that the Eifel Tower was shown in the ad because it’s one of the best places in the world.

Curbs on PIA had been imposed in 2020 after 97 people died when a PIA plane crashed in Karachi in southern Pakistan. Then Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said that an investigation into the crash found that nearly a third of

Pakistani pilots had cheated on their pilot’s exams. A government investigation later concluded that the crash was caused by pilot error.

The ban caused a loss of nearly $150 million a year in revenue for PIA, officials say.

Pakistan has some connections to the Sept. 11 attacks. One of the 9/11 masterminds, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was detained in the country in 2003. In 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed in a US special forces raid in Pakistan.