ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday granted bail to former prime minister Imran Khan and ordered his release in a case involving gifts acquired from a state repository, his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said. 

The reference, popularly called the new Toshakhana case, was filed in July and involves a jewelry set worth over €380,000 gifted to the former first lady by a foreign dignitary when Khan was prime minister from 2018-2022. The couple is accused of undervaluing the gift and buying it at a lesser price from the state repository.

Khan’s wife, who was also under arrest in the case, got bail from the IHC last month. 

Before the new case was filed, the ex-premier, who has been in jail since last August, was convicted in four cases. Two of the cases have since been suspended, including an original one relating to state gifts, while he was acquitted in the remaining two.

“Former prime minister of Pakistan Imran Khan, currently jailed, has been granted bail in the Toshakhana 2 case,” the PTI said in a message shared with media. “Islamabad High Court has ordered his release.”

“This was the last government’s case [against Khan], all previous prosecutions have lost steam and collapsed,” Khan’s lawyer Salman Safdar told reporters outside the court after the IHC delivered its verdict.

However, it is unlikely that Khan will be released after the IHC order as he is also under arrest in a number of cases related to riots in May 2023 in which his alleged supporters ransacked government and military buildings after Khan’s brief arrest in a separate case. 

Khan’s convictions earlier this year prevented him from contesting the Feb. 8 election. The former prime minister and his party alleges the cases are politically motivated cases and a ploy by the caretaker government, Pakistan’s electoral watchdog, the powerful military and his political rivals, led by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, to keep Khan and his party away from elections. All three deny the allegations. 

Khan, who was ousted from office after a parliamentary vote in April 2022, has since waged an unprecedented campaign of defiance against the country’s powerful military, which is thought to be aligned with the government.

He continues to remain popular among the masses, especially the youth, with his party’s rallies drawing thousands of people. Khan’s party has held several rallies over the past few months to build public pressure to secure his release from prison.

The PTI has announced it will hold an anti-government “long march” to Pakistan’s capital on Nov. 24 to demand Khan’s release from prison, the release of the party’s jailed leaders and supporters, and independence of the judiciary, which it says was compromised after the government recently passed the 26th amendment. 

The government says the recent amendments related to the judiciary are meant to smooth out its functioning and tackle a backlog of cases.