RAWALPINDI: An accountability court on Sunday approved the eight-day physical remand of each Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder and former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi in a fresh link to the fission.
The order comes less than a day after the PTI founder and his wife were acquitted in an iddat or illegal marriage case, but their hopes of being released from jail were dashed when the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested them in a fresh reference to Toshakhan.
Another Sessions Judge Muhammad Afzal Majoka a day earlier quashed the couple’s sentence – in which they were sentenced to seven years in jail and fined Rs 500,000 each after a trial court found their nikah fraudulent as Khawar Maneka, Bush’s ex-husband, filed court against the couple’s marriage.
However, soon after the verdict that overturned their conviction, an anti-corruption watchdog team led by Deputy Director Mohsin Haroon arrested the couple at Adiala jail in a new link related to the alleged “abuse of power to extract Toshakhan donations”.
The PTI had been eyeing the release of its founder after securing a key legal victory after a 13-member Supreme Court bench declared the party eligible for allocation of reserved seats – which, if it happens, would give a big boost to the former ruling page.
However, the accountability court today directed the NAB to interrogate the two suspects in Adiala jail and also directed to produce the couple before the court on July 22.
Speaking to media persons, Khan’s lawyer Zaheer Abbas Chaudhary said that NAB has asked for 14-day physical remand of PTI founder and Bushra.
Chaudhary said they resisted physical detention and pleaded that they had bonds worth £190 million.
The lawyer said the arrest of the former prime minister and his wife was against the law, adding that their bail application was already being heard by the Supreme Court.
PTI founder’s legal troubles
Khan has been behind bars since August last year after being convicted in the Toshakhana criminal case and subsequently convicted in other cases ahead of the February 8 election.
Although the former prime minister was granted bail in several May 9 cases registered in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad, the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) last week canceled his bail in one of the May 9 cases registered against him and thousands of his supporters . in connection with violence against the military and other state institutions that erupted after his brief arrest in May 2023.
In June, the Islamabad High Court overturned Khan’s conviction on charges of divulging state secrets in the cipher case, where he was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of publishing a classified telegram sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington in 2022.
Former Prime Minister Khan was also given jail terms – one for 14 years and the other for three years – in two cases related to the illegal acquisition and sale of government donations. Both sentences were stayed by the High Courts while his appeals are heard – but the convictions still stand in both cases.
