Ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan gets reprieve from court; no arrest, jail till March 24

Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan managed to avoid being jailed at least till March 24, after Lahore High Court granted him time-conditioned bail in all nine cases filed against him in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, and Lahore respectively.  

The court approved protective bail for Khan till March 24 in five cases filed against him in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Whereas as for the four other cases filed against him in Lahore, the Pakistan-Tehreek-e-Insaf chief has been granted bail till March 27.

The workers of Imran Khan’s Pakistan-Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) political party celebrated outside the Lahore High Court as the verdicts were announced, The Dawn newspaper reported. 

Imran Khan reportedly told Lahore High that there was an “assassination attempt” he faced, adding that a suicide attack had previously occurred at the court in Islamabad he was supposed to appear before.

“I believe in rule of law. I cannot even imagine not appearing before the courts,” Imran said, according to The Dawn.

“You have to bring yourself into the system,” a judge was reported to have said. “There was no problem in this case. You mishandled it,” the judge said, referring to the pitched battle scenes between police and Khan’s supporters outside his Lahore residence.

The former international cricketer was seen being taken in what local media reported was a ‘bulletproof vehicle’, to Lahore High Court, from his Zaman Park residence in Lahore. The streets outside his home have been the scenes of pitched battles between security forces and Pakistan-Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) workers in recent days.

The legal proceedings against the former cricket star began after he was ousted from office in a parliamentary vote early last year.

Earlier, Khan had alleged that the state wanted to “torture and kill him in police custody.”

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“We had reports that they wanted to arrest me so that they torture me first and then kill me,” Khan categorically told a group of senior journalists at his Zaman Park residence in Lahore.

Imran Khan is facing corruption charges over accusations that he unlawfully sold state gifts given to him by foreign dignitaries when he was country’s prime minister from 2018 to 2022.

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