ISLAMABAD: High Court on Thursday granted bail to former prime minister Imran Khan in nine different cases, a day after the court warned it would cancel his bail over the repeated failure to present himself before judges.
Since his ouster from office in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence last April, the ex-premier has been booked in 140 cases, including blasphemy, terrorism and sedition. Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party say he is being politically victimized by the central government and the all-powerful military. Both deny the charge.
On Thursday morning, Khan traveled to Islamabad from his private home in Lahore and appeared in court on a wheelchair. A large contingent of police was deployed around the court while barbed wire and shipping containers were also placed to ensure security in the area. The police also banned the entry of unrelated persons into the high court.
Khan was shot and wounded at one of his own political rallies last year.
“The criminal cases have been registered [against Imran Khan] by misusing the government machinery,” Khan’s counsel Salman Safdar told the court during Thursday’s hearing, in which the court extended Khan’s interim bail till May 9 in two cases and granted him protective bail in seven cases registered on terrorism charges.
On Khan’s lawyer’s request that he be allowed to attend subsequent hearings via video-link due to security concerns, the court directed him to submit relevant documents, including a medical certificate from a public hospital, so that the court could rule on the matter.
IHC chief justice Aamir Farooq also assured Khan’s lawyer that no one would arrest the ex-PM from the court’s premises” “I am sure the government will not do anything like this, nor should it.”
Before setting off for Islamabad from his Zaman Park residence in Lahore, Khan announced protest rallies in different cities of Pakistan on Saturday, saying the aim was to express solidarity with the Supreme Court Chief Justice, who Khan said was being unfairly criticized by the government for recent rulings on delays in holding elections for the legislative assemblies of the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, which were dissolved by Khan and his allies in January.
“I’ll lead a rally in Lahore,” Khan said while sitting in a wheelchair. “Rallies will be held in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Peshawar. All these rallies will be held on Saturday to tell the chief justice that the whole nation stands with him.”
After weeks of delays and political wrangling after the KP and Punjab assemblies were dissolved in January, the Supreme Court in a three-to-two verdict on March 1 ordered the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to fulfil its constitutional obligation and announce an election schedule for Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The ECP subsequently said the vote in Punjab would be held on April 30 but later said it was impossible to hold it in April due to security and financial concerns. It announced October 8 as the new poll date in Punjab.
Khan’s PTI party then approached the Supreme Court, which on April 4 ruled that the ECP’s postponement decision was illegal and elections should be held on May 14.
