Imran Khan aides sold luxury watch gifted by Saudi Crown Prince, claims Dubai businessman
ADubai-based businessman has claimed that the previous government in Pakistan sold a $2 million luxury watch gifted to former Prime Minister Imran Khan by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
The Graff wristwatch was part of the gifts whose sale landed Imran Khan in a soup and subsequent politics ban.
The businessman Umar Farooq Zahoor claimed that Farah Khan, a close aide of Imran Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi, met him in Dubai and was interested in luxury watches as they were rare and priceless, the Dawn reported.
“They [the PTI] wanted to sell the watch for USD 4 to USD 5 million, but after negotiations, I purchased it for USD 2 million,” he said, adding that the payments were made in cash on Farah Khan’s insistence.
Imran Khan, who stormed to power in 2018, received expensive gifts from rich Arab rulers during official visits, which were deposited in the Toshakhana. Later, he bought the same item at a discounted price as per the relevant laws and sold it for hefty profits.
According to Khan’s statement to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the gifts that he had procured from the state treasury after paying Rs 21.56 million fetched about Rs 58 million. The gifts included a Graff wristwatch, a pair of cufflinks, an expensive pen, a ring, and four Rolex watches.
The Toshakhana issue over the sale of state gifts received by Imran Khan became a major sticking point after the Election Commission of Pakistan disqualified the PTI chief for making “false statements and incorrect declarations.”
“In March 2019, former accountability minister Shahzad Akbar said that he had a set of watches and if I was interested, I should reach out to Farah as she needed help and didn’t have any asset buyers,” Dawn quoted Zahoor as saying in an interview with Geo News. But Akbar denied that he had ever met or talked to Zahoor.
In a tweet on Tuesday, Akbar said, “It is sad that they are using a person against Imran Khan, whose citizenship has been revoked by Norway due to his crimes, who is wanted by Interpol, who has committed fraud in various countries, and who has smuggled his daughters to Dubai using forged documents.”
