ISLAMABAD: In a significant political development, Pakistan’s top court on Tuesday instructed the government to arrange for former prime minister Imran Khan to present his arguments via video link from prison in a case involving amendments to the law regulating the country’s anti-corruption body.
The previous administration of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in May 2022 amended the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Ordinance, reducing several powers of the anti-graft body that was described as a tool of political engineering in the country.
One of the amendments restricted the NAB jurisdiction to cases involving over Rs500 million, leading the opposition to argue that these changes were designed to close corruption cases against leaders of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party.
In June 2022, Khan challenged the amendments in the Supreme Court, claiming they would effectively “eliminate any white-collar crime committed by public office holders.” After reviewing the case, the top court reinstated the original provisions of the law in September 2023, but the government decided to challenge the decision the very next month.
“The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder [Imran Khan] can present his arguments in the upcoming hearing via video link if he wishes to do so,” Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa was quoted as saying by Pakistan’s Geo News TV. “Arrangements should be made for presentation of arguments via video link.”
Khan, who was arrested on corruption charges last year in August, has faced been through prison trial in many cases, though he has largely been kept out of the public eye, where he enjoys a massive following among his supporters.
If the video link is established, this will be the first time he will be seen and heard by people in the last several months. The court said during today’s proceedings it had allowed him to be represented through a counsel but he decided to personally argue the case.
The former prime minister, who was ousted from power in a no-confidence vote in April 2022, became tangled in a slew of legal cases, a frequent hazard for opposition figures in Pakistan.
In a separate development, the Islamabad High Court reserved its verdict while hearing his bail petition in an embezzlement case involving £190 million. The case is built around accusations that Khan and his associates misappropriated the amount sent by London-based National Crime Agency as part of a settlement involving seized assets of a Pakistani property tycoon in Britain.
According to the charges, instead of transferring this money to the state, it was adjusted by Khan’s administration against liabilities related to the property tycoon. As a result, Khan and others were accused of illegally benefiting from over 458 kanals of land for establishing a university.
The former prime minister’s wife, Bushra Bibi, also faced the charges in the case.