ISLAMABAD: Asif Ali Zadari‘s Pakistan Peoples Party on Monday sent a legal notice to Imran Khan seeking an unconditional apology from him within 14 days for levelling baseless accusations against the ex-president that he was plotting to kill him.
Khan, 70, who is still recovering from last year’s gun attack, last week in a video address to party workers accused Zardari, 67, of paying terrorists and hatching a fresh plan along with people in the country’s powerful intelligence agencies to assassinate him after the previous two attempts failed.
“Asif Zardari has paid his corruption money to a terrorist organisation being supported by facilitators of a powerful state agency to launch another attack on me,” according to former prime minister Khan.
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in its legal notice served through veteran party lawyer Farooq Naek asserted that the “baseless accusations of malicious and defamatory nature you have tried to defame our client nationally as well as internationally.”
It added, that “through your defamatory, libellous, scandalous remarks and allegations of serious nature you have tried to create a link between our client and terrorist organisations blindly disregarding the fact that our client and his party have remained the victim of terrorism”.
The party in the notice said that former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, Zardari’s wife, was also assassinated by terrorists.
It went on to demand the former premier Khan “to render an unconditional apology on television, print and social media, within 14 days from the receipt of the notice” otherwise warned him of initiating legal proceedings in Pakistan as well as in England.
The case would include but not be limited to a suit for damages for Rs 1 billion.
Khan is currently living in Lahore where he frequently interacts with party leaders and media persons.
Zardari’s PPP is part of the coalition government set up after toppling Khan’s government in April last year.
Zardari played a key role in the success of the no-confidence vote against Khan.
Khan, 70, who is still recovering from last year’s gun attack, last week in a video address to party workers accused Zardari, 67, of paying terrorists and hatching a fresh plan along with people in the country’s powerful intelligence agencies to assassinate him after the previous two attempts failed.
“Asif Zardari has paid his corruption money to a terrorist organisation being supported by facilitators of a powerful state agency to launch another attack on me,” according to former prime minister Khan.
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in its legal notice served through veteran party lawyer Farooq Naek asserted that the “baseless accusations of malicious and defamatory nature you have tried to defame our client nationally as well as internationally.”
It added, that “through your defamatory, libellous, scandalous remarks and allegations of serious nature you have tried to create a link between our client and terrorist organisations blindly disregarding the fact that our client and his party have remained the victim of terrorism”.
The party in the notice said that former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, Zardari’s wife, was also assassinated by terrorists.
It went on to demand the former premier Khan “to render an unconditional apology on television, print and social media, within 14 days from the receipt of the notice” otherwise warned him of initiating legal proceedings in Pakistan as well as in England.
The case would include but not be limited to a suit for damages for Rs 1 billion.
Khan is currently living in Lahore where he frequently interacts with party leaders and media persons.
Zardari’s PPP is part of the coalition government set up after toppling Khan’s government in April last year.
Zardari played a key role in the success of the no-confidence vote against Khan.