A Pakistani court granted bail on Wednesday (November 20, 2024) to former Prime Minister Imran Khan in a graft case, his lawyer said. But with a slew of other charges pending against him, the Opposition leader is staying behind bars.
Still, the order by a superior court in the capital, Islamabad, was a boost for Khan in the case in which he is accused, along with his wife, Bushra Bibi, of keeping and selling state gifts in violation of government rules when he was in power.
Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in Parliament in 2022, has denied the charge. The hearings in the trial on the graft charges started in July and are still ongoing.
Khan has so far been embroiled in over 150 cases and has been sentenced in several, including to three years, 10 years, 14 years and seven years to be served concurrently under Pakistani law.
His convictions were later overturned in appeals but he cannot be freed due to other, pending cases against him. Because the law is unclear in a situation with multiple cases, Khan has remained in the same prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi where he has been incarcerated since his first conviction.
He has maintained his innocence and has argued that the cases are an attempt to sideline him politically by keeping him out of the public area.
His lawyer, Salman Safdar, said he still remained confident Khan would be freed but experts say there are at least eight cases standing in the way of Khan’s release on bail.
Later Wednesday, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar confirmed that Khan’s release on bail was currently not possible because of the pending cases.
In a further late-night development, police in the garrison city of Rawalpindi announced new charges against Khan of inciting people to violence in September when dozens of his supporters had clashed with police in the city.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI, has been demanding his release. Khan’s supporters have called for a rally in Islamabad on Sunday to demand his release — despite a government ban on the gathering.
Authorities in Islamabad deployed additional police late on Wednesday (Nov. 20) to handle any gathering by Khan supporters.
Pakistan’s laws allow government officials and politicians to keep gifts given to them by foreign dignitaries, but they must correctly declare the market value of those gifts and declare any money they earned after selling them.
Last month, Bibi was freed on bail in the same case but will have to appear in court for the hearings alongside her husband.
Published – November 21, 2024 11:33 am IST
