The Spurious Case Of Toshakhana
The arrest of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister, Imran Khan, received prominent media coverage in international news. But do you know what he has been convicted for? You may have seen references to corruption and illegally selling state gifts, but is that accurate? In fact, it is not. Imran Khan’s conviction by a Sessions Court in Islamabad was not for corruption or selling state gifts.
In fact, he has been convicted under the country’s Election Act for misdeclaration of his assets. All members of Pakistan’s parliament are required to file annual declarations with the Election Commission, showing their assets and liabilities as of the 30th of June, which is when the government’s fiscal year ends.
Pakistan’s Election Commission initiated a private complaint for prosecution of Imran Khan for misdeclaration of assets acquired from the Tosha Khana, the government’s gift repository.
Tosha Khana, which is a term of Persian origin that literally means Treasure House, is the government’s gift repository and any gifts from foreign governments received by Pakistani government officials, typically when they visit other countries, are deposited into the Tosha Khana.
A board of bureaucrats independently assesses the value of each gift, which is then offered to the original recipient, who is legally allowed to acquire it on payment of a certain percentage of its assessed value. That formula used to be 20 percent of the assessed value, but it was increased to fifty percent by Imran Khan’s government.
There is nothing in the law that prevents the recipient from selling the items acquired under the Tosha Khana process. After all, once Imran Khan paid for the items, they became his property and he was free to dispose of them as he saw fit.
The entire process of receiving the gift, assessing its value, offering it to the recipient, their decision about whether to pay the appropriate percentage and buy it, or to return it to the repository for auction, is part of official government record.
There are no allegations of concealment and there is nothing in the judgement related to incorrect valuation. All gifts received by Imran Khan were correctly declared.
There is nothing in the judgement about undervaluation the purchase price of any of the gifts, which, even if there were, would be a question for the committee that carries out the valuations, not Imran Khan. And there is nothing in the judgement about gifts being sold for more than their declared value.
Concealment or under-declaration are not the issue.
If the gifts were acquired legally, there is no concealment, and there is no limitation about their onward sale, then what was the conviction for?
There are three issues that the judge found, one in each year under review. In 2018/19, there is discrepancy between the value at which the gifts were sold, and the amount of money in Imran Khan’s bank account. In 2019/20 the allegation is that three small gifts of relatively moderate value were not declared. And, finally, in 2020/21, gifts were correctly declared but were misclassified and not itemized.
Let’s look at these one by one.
In 2018/19 several gifts were acquired for a total of 21 million Rupees – about 75 thousand dollars at current exchange rates – and sold for 58 million Rupees, or roughly 200 thousand dollars. Imran Khan’s bank account statements for that year only reflected 30 million Rupees. This was deemed by the judge to be misdeclaration.
But how did the judge determine that? Part of the proceeds could have been received in cash, or used to pay off expenses during the time the gifts were sold and June 30th of that year, that the returns were drawn up to. Imran Khan wanted to bring his accountants and financial advisors as witnesses to explain this, but the judge ruled the defense witness were not relevant and denied him that opportunity.
In the following year, 2019/20, Imran Khan received 3 small gifts of items of personal use that were valued at a moderate 1.7 million Rupees, or about 6 thousand dollars at current exchange rates. These were not part of Imran Khan’s asset declaration. His lawyers explained that they had already been gifted onwards by Imran Khan to friends and family before the end of the fiscal year on the 30th of June. As such, they were not his property on the 30th of June 2020, the date that the asset declaration was drawn up to. This was also done at the advice of his accountants, who Imran Khan wanted to call as defense witnesses to explain this to the court, but that was not permitted by the judge.
And finally, in the year 2020/21, five gifts were declared correctly at their total combined value in the declaration forms. They were classified under the category of Precious Items. The judge ruled that they should have been declared under the category of Movable Property, identified as having been received through the Tosha Khana process, and listed individually. Although this would make no difference to the total value, which was completely and accurately declared, and there are no fields in the form prescribed by the Election Commission for itemization or identification as items from the Tosha Khana, the judge ruled this to be a misdeclaration and a crime.
This is a flawed judgement by a biased judge in a case that denied Imran Khan the right to a fair trial. Questions about the court’s jurisdiction to hear the case and its maintainability, including the fact that the 120 day period prescribed in the law for scrutiny of annual asset declarations by members of parliament had elapsed, remain unanswered. The defense was denied the opportunity to present witnesses, which the judge determined to be irrelevant without even calling them to the stand. And the defense attorneys were not given the opportunity to present their closing arguments.
Everything ultimately boils down to this. The coalition regime in Pakistan, led by the dynastic political parties of the Sharif and Bhutto families, PMLN and PPP, are petrified of facing Imran Khan in an election. He is the most popular leader perhaps in the country’s history and his party is expected to sweep even moderately fair elections. All opinion polls in recent months support this conclusion.
The Sharif and Bhutto families know this, as does the country’s powerful military establishment that is widely believed to be backing them. These fabricated charges, the sham trial in a kangaroo court, and a narrative of so-called “corruption” is only meant to eliminate Imran Khan from politics and to give them a path to victory in upcoming general elections in Pakistan. But the people of the country may have other ideas…