ISLAMABAD: PTI on Wednesday announced legal action in the emirate against Dubai-based businessman Umar Farooq Zahoor after he received Tosha Khana gifts from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Revealed to buy.
Zahoor has claimed that Farah Gogi and Shahzad Akbar sold him an expensive Graff wristwatch – worth at least Rs 2 billion – and has evidence to back it up.
In an affidavit, the businessman listed four gifts he bought from Farah – a close friend of Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi, who was also recently embroiled in corruption cases.
Addressing a press conference along with PTI leader Zulfi Bukhari, PTI Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhry said that the party has decided to initiate legal action against Zahoor as his claims are baseless.
The former federal minister said that in 2018, the Saudi Crown Prince gifted a watch to Imran Khan and the dispute over the price of this watch has been going on for some time.
Chaudhary said the watch was worth Rs 100 million, and according to the law regulating tosha houses, Khan sold it in the market for more than Rs 50 million and filed capital gains tax on it.
Explaining the details of the Tosha Khana procedure, the PTI leader said that when gifts given to state officials reach Pakistan, they are deposited in the Tosha Khana.
He said that the Chief of Protocol receives the gifts and brings them to Pakistan and the same official deposits them in the Tosha Khana. Then, the cabinet division determines its price, Chaudhry said.
“The law says that 20 percent of the value of the gift should be deposited in the national exchequer. We amended the law to 50 percent,” he said.
Defending the former prime minister, Chaudhry said the gift items were not sold to a Dubai-based businessman and Bushra Bibi’s friend had no role in their sale.
“The watch was not sold to anyone named Umar Zahoor. The watch was not given to Farah for sale and she has no role in it,” he said, leveling allegations against the millionaire.
Chaudhry said that Zahoor has three brothers who are serving jail time in Norway. He added that the businessman himself is facing criminal cases.
The PTI leader further said that Zahoor took his children to Dubai on illegal documents.
On his part, Bukhari said former President Asif Ali Zardari and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also took gifts from the Tosha Khana but there was no commotion when they did so.
“There are many graph shops in Dubai, the price of the watch can be obtained from any of them. The dealer who brought the watch from us sold it for over Rs 60 million.”
The dealer who sold the watch is no longer in the country, he said, adding that the PTI leadership had the person’s name and number.
