An accountability court on Sunday approved eight-day physical remand each of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder and former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, in a fresh graft reference.
The order comes less than a day after the PTI founder and his wife were acquitted in the iddat or illegal marriage case, but their hopes of coming out of prison were dampened as the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested them in a new Toshakhana reference.
Additional Sessions Judge Muhammad Afzal Majoka had a day earlier nixed the couple's conviction — in which they were sentenced to seven years in prison and awarded a fine of Rs500,000 each after a trial court found their nikah to be fraudulent as Khawar Maneka, Bushra's ex-husband, moved the court against the couple's marriage.
However, soon after the verdict overturning their conviction, a team of the anti-corruption watchdog headed by Deputy Director Mohsin Haroon arrested the couple in the Adiala Jail in the new reference related to alleged "misuse of power for acquiring Toshakhana gifts".
The PTI, after securing a key legal victory after a 13-member Supreme Court bench declared the party eligible for the allocation of reserved seats, was looking forward to their founder's release — which if it had happened would've given a major boost to the former ruling party.
However, the accountability court today has directed the NAB to interrogate the two suspects in Adiala jail and also ordered to produce the couple before the court on July 22.
Khan's lawyer Zaheer Abbas Chaudhary, while speaking to media persons, said that NAB had requested a 14-day physical remand of PTI founder and Bushra.
Chaudhary said that they opposed the physical remanded, pleading that they have engagements in the £190 million reference.
The lawyer said that the ex-premier and his wife's arrest was against the law, adding that their petition seeking bail was already being heard in the Supreme Court.
Khan has been behind bars since August last year after he was sentenced in the Toshakhana criminal case and subsequently sentenced in other cases ahead of the February 8 elections.
Although the former PM has been granted bail in several May 9 cases registered in Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Faisalabad, an anti-terrorism court (ATC) last week cancelled his bail in one of the May 9 cases registered against him and thousands of his supporters in connection with violence against the military and other state installations that erupted following his brief arrest in May 2023.
In June, the Islamabad High Court overturned Khan's conviction on charges of leaking state secrets in the cipher case wherein he was handed down a 10-year prison sentence on charges of making public a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan's ambassador in Washington in 2022.
Also, the ex-premier Khan was given jail sentences — one of 14 years and the other three years — in two cases pertaining to illegally acquiring and selling state gifts. Both sentences have been suspended by high courts while his appeals are heard — however, the conviction in both cases still stands.
