Pakistan: Islamabad court issues notice to NAB on bail petitions of Imran Khan, his wife

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad high court (IHC) on Thursday issued notice to the National Accountability Bureau on bail petitions filed by former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi in the new Toshakhana case, Pakistan-based Dawn reported.

Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi, who were taken into custody after their acquittal in the iddat case have filed a petition stating that they were illegally remanded into NAB's custody, which has impacted their fundamental rights of liberty.

Initially, the division bench comprising IHC Chief Justice Amir Farooq and Justice Saman Rafat Imtiaz took up the petition of the couple on July 25, according to Dawn report. However, Imran Khan's lawyer requested the IHC Chief Justice Amir Farooq to recuse himself from the case.

He said that Farooq should not hear the case as Khan had registered a complaint against him in the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC). The lawyer called for the transfer of the case to another bench.

Although Farooq rejected the request for recusal, he had to constitute a new bench as Justice Imtiaz went on summer vacation, and the previous bench was dissolved. The case has been moved to a separate division comprising Justices Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb and Arbab Muhammad Tahir.

Meanwhile, the Lahore High Court's (LHC) Justice Syed Shahbaz Ali Rizvi on Thursday overruled an objection to Bushra Bibi's petition against her arrest in the third Toshakhana case, according to Dawn report.

The judge removed the registrar's office's objection to the maintainability of the petition and ordered that it be fixed for a hearing. Bushra Bibi filed the petition through Advocate Sardar Latif Khosa.

The petition stated that Bushra Bibi and her husband had been granted bail in the Toshakhana case. However, they were re-arrested in a new case with malicious intent, Dawn reported.

It claimed that female officials assaulted and humiliated the petitioner during the arrest in Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail. The petitioner stated that she was arrested without a warrant from the NAB and was imprisoned as an act of political victimisation.

It requested the court to take action against the jail superintendent and the female officials involved in the alleged assault on the petitioner and declare Bushra Bibi's arrest illegal.

Imran Khan (71), who served as Pakistan's Prime Minister from 2018 to 2022, has been incarcerated in Adiala Jail since August 2023 on multiple charges, including the Toshakhana case, the cypher case and the unlawful marriage case. His wife has also remained in prison for months.

A court has suspended his sentence in the Toshakhana case and other courts overturned his convictions in the cypher and iddat cases respectively, Geo News reported. However, the hopes for Imran Khan and his wife's release were dashed when NAB arrested them on fresh charges related to the sale of state gifts.

The chances of Imran Khan's release from prison were further dimmed after his arrest in new cases related to the May 9, 2023 riots case after his acquittal in the iddat case, Geo News reported. Protests erupted across Pakistan after Imran Khan was arrested on May 9, 2023. The protests were held in remote and major cities as the PTI workers were angry after Imran Khan's arrest.