Addressing a gathering of Pakistan’s Tehreek-i-Insaf party, its chief and former cricketer said that he will reveal the identity of the individual who offered him Rupees 10 billion to stay silent over the Panama leaks issue.
According to Dawn, Khan also said the ‘messenger’ who had brought him the deal was offered Rs 2 billions to convince Khan to accept the offer.
Earlier on Thursday, Imran Khan has claimed that he was offered Rs 10 billion by Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to stay silent over the Panama leaks issue, a charge denied by the government.
Imran, however, made it clear that Sharif directly did not offer him the money but the offer came from him Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif's friends.
The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief said that the man met him about two weeks ago and informed him that he was given the task.
He came to see me about two weeks ago and told me about the offer. Let me tell you that the Sharif family had even made him a very good offer and promised to ‘entertain’ him if he could convince me. This Rs 10 billion was just a starting point; if I had showed some flexibility, they could have offered me more than that.
"Imran Khan has made a record of lying," said Sharif at an event in Lahore, dismissing Khan’s claims. "I have the right to take this up in the court of law," he was quoted as saying by Geo News. Shahbaz too dismissed his allegations.
Responding to the allegations, State Minister for Information Marriyum Aurangzeb, at a press conference, said:
He (Imran) is a juggler; he started with the slogan of election rigging, moved on to the phrase that an umpire is set to raise his finger, and has now resorted to criticising all state institutions, including the Election Commission and judges of the apex court.
Sharif's daughter Maryam also slammed the former cricketer on twitter.
Sharif last week got a temporary breather from the Supreme Court which said there was "insufficient evidence" to remove him from office but ordered setting up of a joint team to investigate the graft allegations against his family.
The high-profile graft case is about alleged money laundering by Sharif in 1990s when he twice served as the Prime Minister to purchase assets in London. The assets surfaced when Panama papers last year showed that they were managed through offshore companies owned by Sharif's children.
(With inputs from PTI)
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