ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said on Tuesday its leader had not been moved yet to Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail despite an order from the Islamabad High Court a day earlier that he be transferred from a high-security prison in Attock.
Khan was arrested on Aug. 5 after a trial court in Islamabad found him guilty of “corrupt practices” in a case involving the unlawful sale of state gifts during his tenure as prime minister from 2018 to 2022. He has since been serving his sentence at Attock Jail.
The IHC suspended Khan’s sentence on Aug. 29 but he remains in jail on remand in another case, popularly called the cipher case, in which he is charged with leaking state secrets. The latest extension of the remand order will keep Khan in jail until Oct. 10. Meanwhile, the former PM had filed a petition with the IHC seeking his transfer to Adiala Jail.
On Monday, IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq observed that under-trial prisoners (UTPs) of all the courts in the federal capital were kept at Adiala, issuing directions to shift Khan to that prison.
The direction followed arguments by Khan’s counsel Sher Afzal Khan Marwat who said the court had suspended Khan’s sentence in the state gifts case and the ex-PM was now facing a trial in the cipher case before a special court in Islamabad. As a UTP in the federal territory, Khan must be kept in Adiala Jail, he had argued.
“Imran Khan is still in Attock Jail where a special court judge conducted today’s hearing in the cipher case,” Rizwan Ahmed, a PTI spokesperson, told Arab News on Tuesday morning. “The court has extended Imran Khan’s judicial remand in the cipher case till October 10.
“Imran Khan may be shifted to Adiala Jail from Attock prison after the Islamabad High Court issues a written order in this regard,” he added.
“Our legal team is following it and we’ll be updating the media accordingly.”
A day earlier, a senior Khan aide, Zulfiqar Bukhari, had said arrangements were being made to move Khan to the Rawalpindi prison.
In the state secrets case, Khan is charged with making public the contents of a confidential cable sent by Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States and using it for political gain, according to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
Khan alleges that the cable proves the United States had pressed Pakistan’s military to orchestrate the fall of his government because he had visited Russia shortly before its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Washington and the Pakistani military have denied Khan’s accusations.
Khan also faces a range of other legal cases he says are politically motivated.
