ISLAMABAD, January 31. /TASS/. A Pakistani court has sentenced Imran Khan, former prime minister and leader of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, together with his wife, Bushra Bibi, to 14 years each in prison on charges of corruption and illegally selling state gifts from foreign leaders, Karachi’s Dawn newspaper reports.

Previously, Khan and former Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi were sentenced to 10 years each by a special court for improperly disclosing classified government information.

Khan led the Pakistani government in 2018-2022, but was removed from office on April 10, 2022, after failing to win a vote of no confidence.

The case against Khan was initiated after March 27, 2022, when he publicly announced that he had received an encrypted message from the Pakistani ambassador to Washington. According to Khan, it said that representatives of the US government had recommended that the head of Islamabad’s diplomatic mission in Washington take action to "remove the prime minister from power due to his pro-Russian position in context of the Ukraine crisis, which he demonstrated during his visit to Moscow in February of 2022."