Imran Khan failed to provide evidence of assassination claim before joint investigation team: Interior Minister Sanaullah

Islamabad: Pakistan's Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah has said that former prime minister Imran Khan has admitted that he does not have any evidence for his assassination conspiracy allegations levelled against Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, top government functionaries and the Army chief.

Addressing a press conference here, Sanaullah said that Khan, also the chief of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, for no reason levelled allegations against Prime Minister Sharif, himself and senior Pakistan Army officers for hatching an assassination conspiracy, The Express Tribune newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Sanaullah criticised Khan for making baseless accusations against the prime minister, interior minister and the Army chief that they want to kill him. Khan was asked to produce evidence, but he failed to present any, he said.

Khan, 70, in recent months, has claimed that an assassination conspiracy has been hatched against him by a few members of the ruling government.

Khan survived an attempt on his life in November last year when his party’s ‘Haqeeqi Azadi’ march reached Wazirabad in Punjab province. Khan, who sustained multiple bullet injuries in his leg, was operated upon and pellets removed from his thigh and shin.

In an interview in April, Khan openly said that Prime Minister Sharif, Interior Minister Sanaullah and two members of the establishment would be responsible if anything happens to him.

Khan, who faces a slew of legal cases, has also sought exemption from appearances in the court as there are chances that conspiracy hatchers would use the opportunity to kill him.

On Monday, Khan joined a probe session held by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) over his allegations against top military officials and was shown all the videos in which he made the allegations against the top functionaries of the government and the Army.

In a written statement to the JIT, Khan admitted that neither had ISI DGC Maj Gen Faisal Naseer threatened him directly nor did he have any evidence to substantiate his allegations against him, the report said.

"JIT showed a video to the PTI chief, and he confessed that it was his own voice. During the investigation, he proved himself to be a liar and confessed that all his statements were baseless,” Sanaullah said.

"When the PTI chief was shown the FIR against him by the JIT, he was unable to provide any evidence to support the allegations he hurled in the video clips," he said.

The JIT inquired why he mentioned the name of DG ISI in his videos. They also questioned whether he had met a senior military official, whom he referred to as “Dirty Harry”.

Meanwhile, the PTI has condemned what it called the “leakage” of JIT proceedings to media houses after Khan attended its proceedings on June 12 in Islamabad. The party called for an investigation to identify and hold people who were involved in the attack on Imran Khan accountable.

“We call upon media to refrain from transmitting, publishing and airing of the content released through dubious and unverified sources which lack veracity and legal value and aimed primarily to contaminate public opinion, mislead the nation and impact the case adversely at the stage of the investigation,” the PTI statement said.

Khan, a cricketer-turned-politician, was ousted from power in April last year after losing a no-confidence vote in his leadership, which he alleged was part of a US-led conspiracy targeting him because of his independent foreign policy decisions on Russia, China and Afghanistan.