PTI to file petition seeking probe into PM receiving funds from Bin Ladin

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has decided to file a petition in the Supreme Court against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to seek an investigation regarding his latest allegation on the Prime Minister. 

Imran Khan has claimed that the premier took money from Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden for the election campaign of the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) during the 1990s.

PTI has almost completed internal discussion between party members and soon a petition against the prime minister and his party for “conspiring against democracy in the country after receiving money from foreign forces” will be filed, says PTI spokesman and lawyer Fawad Chaudhry.

He also said that the time had come that the nation should be told about secret links of Mr Sharif with foreign forces.

The PTI announcement comes four days after Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar asked political parties to maintain the respect of the institution.

“There is an old doctrine from the US that the political dirt should not be washed in the laundry of the judiciary so that the dignity of institutions is not hurt,” the chief justice had said during the hearing of a petition filed by PML-N leader Hanif Abbasi.

Hanif Abbasi had filed a petition, seeking disqualification of PTI chief Imran Khan and secretary general Jahangir Khan Tareen for non-disclosure of their assets, the existence of their offshore companies and the PTI being funded from abroad.

This allegation has not been formed out of thin air. It first surfaced last year when Shamama Khalid, the wife of a former operative of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in her book claimed that Mr Sharif had “received funding from Osama bin Laden to contest elections against Ms Benazir Bhutto-led Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) after the end of Zia regime”.

The book also claims that the main reason why Bin Ladin was interested in Mr Sharif was the pledge of introducing an Islamic system that he had taken.

“But even though the Al Qaeda head honcho funded Nawaz Sharif heavily, the latter backed out from his promises after coming into power,” claims the author reportedly in her book.