ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday granted former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan two-week bail in a graft case, a day after the Supreme Court declared his arrest from the IHC premises earlier in the week “invalid and unlawful.”
The popular opposition leader was brought before the same court, the Islamabad High Court, on Friday from where he was arrested on Tuesday by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in connection with a case involving a bribe of land, popularly known as the Al-Qadir Trust case.
Khan’s detention unleashed days of violent demonstrations in which his supporters set ablaze a state broadcaster building, smashed buses, ransacked a top army official’s house and attacked other assets, leading to nearly 3,000 arrests and the army being deployed for help.
On Thursday, a Supreme Court bench headed by the chief justice of Pakistan ruled Khan’s arrest from the IHC premises illegal, and ordered that he be produced before the Islamabad High Court so it could reconsider its initial decision to uphold the arrest.
On Friday, the IHC granted Khan two-week protective bail and also barred authorities from arresting him until May 17 in any case that had been registered against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party chief in the jurisdiction of Islamabad after May 9, the day he was arrested.
“The Islamabad High Court has given a two week bail and also ordered the (anti-graft body) not to arrest Imran Khan during this period,” his lawyer Faisal Chaudhry told media.
“They had no reason to arrest me, they abducted me,” Khan told reporters when the hearing recessed for Friday prayers and before he was granted bail. “They showed me an [arrest] warrant after taking me to jail, this happens if there is the rule of the jungle.”
Commenting on his arrest being carried out by paramilitary Rangers officials, Khan said:
“And the army abducts me. Where was the police? Where was the law? This is the law of the jungle, rather it seems that martial law has been declared.”
A statement released by the Prime Minister's office after Khan's bail "condemned in strong terms the extraordinary intervention" of the chief justice in the case against Khan, which ultimately let the IHC to retake the issue of whether his arrest was legal and grant him bail on Friday.
PM Sharif also criticized the country’s judiciary for being "lenient" with Khan in televised comments.
“The judiciary is standing like an iron wall to protect Imran,” Sharif said.
Speaking to the media after the court verdict, interior minister Rana Sanaullah said the government would try to get the bail dismissed.
“And if bail is granted in some cases and not in other cases, then we would definitely arrest him in cases in which he has not obtained bail," Sanaullah said.
The meeting was still underway.
Meanwhile, the PTI gave a call for countrywide protests, asking its supporters to gather at designated areas after Friday prayers.
As Khan was brought to the court amid an unprecedented deployment of security officials earlier in the day, his supporters clashed with police elsewhere in the capital, and the city’s main Srinagar Highway was completely blocked by police to keep protesters from gathering.
This week’s clashes have left at least six people dead, one in the southwestern city of Quetta and five in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province.
Thousands of people have been arrested and the government has called in army troops to help restore order in Islamabad as well as the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. Public gatherings are also banned in Punjab, KP and Islamabad.
Khan, who was ousted as prime minister last year in a parliamentary no-trust vote, faces more than legal 100 cases, with charges ranging from terrorism and sedition to corruption and inciting violence and threatening police and government officials. A new terrorism charge was filed against him and several top aides on Thursday for allegedly inciting his followers to violence after his arrest. Several of the key leaders of his party, including Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, Asad Umar, Shireen Mazari and Shah Mahmood Qureshi, have also been arrested.
Following the Supreme Court’s release order on Thursday, Khan spent a night at a government guest house in Islamabad, where he met with family members and aides. President Arif Alvi also had a meeting with him.