Khan and his wife have denied accusations that they misrepresented the value of state gifts, including jewellery, and profited from them.

Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi have been sentenced to 17 years in prison after a Pakistani court found them guilty of illegally retaining and selling valuable state gifts.

The sentence, handed down on Saturday, capped a years-long saga that saw the duo accused of selling various gifts – including jewellery from the Saudi Arabian government – at far below market value. They have denied all charges.

In order to keep gifts from foreign dignitaries, Pakistani law requires officials to purchase them at market value and to declare profits from any sales.

But prosecutors claimed that the couple profited from the items after purchasing them at an artificially low price of $10,000, compared with their market rate of $285,521.

Khan’s supporters were quick to denounce the ruling, with his spokesperson Zulfikar Bukhari saying that “criminal liability was imposed without proof of intent, gain, or loss, relying instead on a retrospective reinterpretation of rules”.

His party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, wrote on social media that the proceedings were a “sham” and criticised international media coverage of the case.

The 73-year-old former leader served as Pakistan’s prime minister from 2018 until April 2022, when he was ousted in a no-confidence vote.

He was imprisoned starting in August 2023 on various charges of corruption and revealing state secrets, all of which he has denied and claimed to be politically motivated. He has been acquitted of some charges.

An internationally famous cricket player in the heyday of his sporting career, Khan remains popular in Pakistan, with his imprisonment leading to protests throughout the last two years.

The former leader is now confined to a prison in the city of Rawalpindi and “kept inside all the time”, his sister, Uzma Khanum, told journalists earlier this month.

Khanum, a doctor who was the first family member allowed to visit Khan in weeks, described him as “very angry” about the isolation, saying that he considered the “mental torture” of imprisonment to be “worse than physical abuse”.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration launched military strikes Friday in Syria to “eliminate” Islamic State group fighters and weapons sites in retaliation for an ambush attack that killed two U.S. troops and an American civilian interpreter almost a week ago.

A U.S. official described it as “a large-scale” strike that hit 70 targets in areas across central Syria that had IS infrastructure and weapons. Another U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, said more strikes should be expected.

“This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance. The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on social media.

The new military operation in Syria comes even as the Trump administration has said it’s looking to focus closer to home in the Western Hemisphere, building up an armada in the Caribbean Sea as it targets alleged drug-smuggling boats and vowing to keep seizing sanctioned oil tankers as part of a pressure campaign on Venezuela’s leader. The U.S. has shifted significant resources away from the Middle East to further those goals: Its most advanced aircraft carrier arrived in South American waters last month from the Mediterranean Sea.

Trump vowed retaliation

President Donald Trump pledged “very serious retaliation” after the shooting in the Syrian desert, for which he blamed IS. Those killed were among hundreds of U.S. troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the militant group.

During a speech in North Carolina on Friday evening, the president hailed the operation as a “massive strike” that took out the “ISIS thugs in Syria who were trying to regroup.”

Earlier, in his social media post, he reiterated his backing for Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who Trump said was “fully in support” of the U.S. effort.

Trump also offered an all-caps threat, warning IS against attacking American personnel again.

“All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned — YOU WILL BE HIT HARDER THAN YOU HAVE EVER BEEN HIT BEFORE IF YOU, IN ANY WAY, ATTACK OR THREATEN THE U.S.A.,” the president added.

The attack was conducted using F-15 Eagle jets, A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack aircraft and AH-64 Apache helicopters, the U.S. officials said. F-16 fighter jets from Jordan and HIMARS rocket artillery also were used, one official added.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees the region, said in a social media post that American jets, helicopters and artillery employed more than 100 precision munitions on Syrian targets.

How Syria has responded

The attack was a major test for the warming ties between the United States and Syria since the ouster of autocratic leader Bashar Assad a year ago. Trump has stressed that Syria was fighting alongside U.S. troops and said al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack,” which came as the U.S. military is expanding its cooperation with Syrian security forces.

Syria’s foreign ministry in a statement on X following the launch of U.S. strikes said that last week’s attack “underscores the urgent necessity of strengthening international cooperation to combat terrorism in all its forms” and that Syria is committed “to fighting ISIS and ensuring that it has no safe havens on Syrian territory and will continue to intensify military operations against it wherever it poses a threat.”

Syrian state television reported that the U.S. strikes hit targets in rural areas of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa provinces and in the Jabal al-Amour area near the historic city of Palmyra. It said they targeted “weapons storage sites and headquarters used by ISIS as launching points for its operations in the region.”

IS has not said it carried out the attack on the U.S. service members, but the group has claimed responsibility for two attacks on Syrian security forces since, one of which killed four Syrian soldiers in Idlib province. The group in its statements described al-Sharaa’s government and army as “apostates.” While al-Sharaa once led a group affiliated with al-Qaida, he has had a long-running enmity with IS.

The Americans who were killed

Trump this week met privately with the families of the slain Americans at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before he joined top military officials and other dignitaries on the tarmac for the dignified transfer, a solemn and largely silent ritual honoring U.S. service members killed in action.

The guardsmen killed in Syria last Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown. Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Michigan, a U.S. civilian working as an interpreter, also was killed.

The shooting near Palmyra also wounded three other U.S. troops as well as members of Syria’s security forces, and the gunman was killed. The assailant had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months ago and recently was reassigned because of suspicions that he might be affiliated with IS, Interior Ministry spokesperson Nour al-Din al-Baba has said.

The man stormed a meeting between U.S. and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards.

___

Associated Press writer Abby Sewell in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow would refrain from launching new attacks on other nations provided his country is treated “with respect.”

The Kremlin made the remarks during his annual televised press conference in Moscow as concerns persist among European nations that Russia poses a security threat, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

“Will there be new special military operations? There will be no operations if you treat us with respect, if you observe our interests, just as we have constantly tried to observe yours,” Putin said.

TRUMP TOUTS ‘TREMENDOUS PROGRESS’ BUT SAYS HE’LL MEET PUTIN AND ZELENSKYY ‘ONLY WHEN’ PEACE DEAL IS FINAL

Putin uses the phrase “special military operation” to describe Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, according to AFP.

He added there would be no further Russian invasions “if you don’t cheat us like you cheated us with NATO’s eastward expansion,” according to the BBC.

The Russian leader also claimed he was “ready and willing” to end the war in Ukraine “peacefully,” though he offered few details suggesting a willingness to compromise, the BBC reported.

PUTIN CLAIMS ‘TROOPS ARE ADVANCING,’ WILL ACHIEVE GOALS AS EU APPROVES MASSIVE UKRAINE LOAN

The yearly news conference, which typically runs at least four hours, features questions from reporters and members of the public across Russia. 

More than 2.5 million questions were submitted for this year’s event, which focused heavily on the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported.

Putin also noted during the event that the nation’s “troops are advancing” and expressed confidence that Russia will accomplish its objectives through military means if Ukraine does not assent to Russia’s terms during peace talks, according to The Associated Press.

PUTIN DOUBLES DOWN ON BACKING MADURO AMID MOUNTING US PRESSURE ON VENEZUELA

“Our troops are advancing all across the line of contact, faster in some areas or slower in some others, but the enemy is retreating in all sectors,” Putin declared.

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As the war drags on, the European Union has just agreed to provide Ukraine with a loan of over $105 billion.

Fox News Digital’s Alex Nitzberg contributed to this report.