Options to keep Imran behind bars for indefinite period

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder chairman Imran Khan is getting relief from courts but the authorities have some tricks up their sleeves to keep the former prime minister behind the bars for an indefinite period.

Case after case against Imran Khan is collapsing, which kindled the hope among PTI leaders and followers that the party’s top leader would be out of jail within a few weeks’ time. However, sources in the government think otherwise.

While Imran Khan’s contentious tweet about the 1971 debacle has given the FIA the excuse to consider making another case against Imran Khan and others, the NAB is waiting for the right time to file the Toshakhana reference-II against Imran and Bushra Bibi. The NAB’s move, according to sources, would ensure the couple remains behind the bars even if they are acquitted in the Iddat case too.

Imran Khan had court convictions in four different cases. In three cases, he and his co-accused have either been acquitted or their sentences got suspended. Now there is only one case where Imran Khan’s conviction and his sentence still stays as the major hurdle in his release from jail.

Informed sources said the NAB’s probe into the Toshakhana case-II has been completed, and now it is ready for filing a reference against Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi in the accountability court. The reference will be filed at the right time, a source said.

In NAB’s first Toshakhana reference, Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi were sentenced to 14 years in jail besides over Rs1 billion penalty by the accountability court shortly before Feb 8 elections. However, when the appeal was filed before the IHC, it suspended the couple’s sentence. Before the NAB’s intervention, Imran Khan had already been twice bitten by the same Toshakhana scandal. On October 21, 2022, Imran was disqualified from the National Assembly for five years by the Election Commission after he was found guilty of concealing facts about selling expensive gifts. A four-member bench, headed by Chief Election Commissioner Sikander Sultan Raja, announced the verdict. According to the verdict, criminal proceedings were to be initiated against Imran for misdeclaration.

Following its order against Imran, the ECP referred a criminal case against the former prime minister to the Islamabad sessions court, which in August last year convicted the PTI chief in the Toshakhana case and sentenced him for three years. The said sentence was also suspended by the IHC at the appeal stage.

In the Cipher case, Imran Khan and Shah Mehmood Qureshi were given ten-year jail by a special court. The IHC on Monday acquitted both the politicians.

Imran has also been acquitted in some of the many May 9 related cases. Currently, Imran and Bushra Bibi’s sentence in Iddat case is the major hurdle in their release from jail. In this case, the couple was sentenced to seven years in jail shortly before Feb 8 elections.

Last week, Imran Khan’s legal team and the PTI were expecting the couple’s acquittal in the Iddat case. However, the judge, who was to announce the judgment reserved earlier, referred the case to the CJ IHC to fix it before some other judge after Khawar Manika had voiced his no-confidence in the court.