Islamabad, May 4 (IANS) The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday rejected the petitions of former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi requesting the suspension of their sentences in the £190 million corruption case. The court stated that their main appeals were already fixed for hearing, local media reported on Monday.
Asserting that a two-member bench headed by Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar will hear the central appeals on May 7, the court termed the suspension applications infructuous, Pakistan’s leading daily Dawn reported.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan, who has remained incarcerated since August 2023 for hiding details of Toshakhana gifts, is serving a 14-year sentence at Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail in the £190m case, also known as the Al-Qadir Trust case.
In 2025, an accountability court in Islamabad sentenced Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi to 14 and seven years in prison, respectively, in the case. The couple has challenged their convictions before the Islamabad High Court.
The case alleges that Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi received billions of rupees and land worth hundreds of kanals from Bahria Town Ltd to legalise Pakistani Rupees (PKR) 50 billion identified and returned to the country by the United Kingdom during the PTI-led government.
Last week, the PTI condemned the detention of Imran Khan, which has completed 1,000 days, terming it a blatant act of political victimisation, total denial of constitutional and legal justification and called for his immediate release, according to a report.
In a statement, PTI Central Information Secretary Waqas Akram said PTI founder Imran Khan is being subjected to political victimisation as the current government, afraid of his popularity and independent stance, is trying to sideline him, the UAE’s Gulf Today reported.
Akram stated that Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, were being subjected to inhumane treatment. He alleged that the PTI founder is being held in solitary confinement, while his family, lawyers, and party leadership were not allowed to meet him, which amounts to a clear violation of fundamental human and legal rights.
Earlier in March, Imran Khan’s son, Kasim Khan, termed his father’s detention “arbitrary” and raised serious concerns over treatment by the Pakistani authorities, which he said breaches international human rights conventions.
During the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session in Geneva, Kasim Khan said that Imran Khan’s case was not an “isolated incident” but was the “most visible example” of a much wider pattern of repression in Pakistan since 2022. He spoke about the detention of political prisoners, trial and conviction of civilians by military courts, and journalists being “silenced, abducted or driven into exile,” Pakistani daily Dawn reported.
Kasim Khan, who said that his father was being held in solitary confinement, also spoke about the general elections held in Pakistan in February 2024, reiterating PTI’s allegations that polls were rigged. He said that Pakistan had made commitments under the GSP-plus framework to uphold international human rights conventions, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the United Nations Convention against Torture.
He said that Imran Khan is not allowed to meet his family and is being denied medical care. He also highlighted that the trial of civilians in military courts violated treaty obligations, Dawn reported.
“My brother and I are not political people. We never wanted to come before bodies like this. [But] my father’s life demands that we take action. We cannot stand by as his health deteriorates and he is kept away from us. If the situation were reversed, we know he would not stop fighting until we were free. That is the very least we can do for him,” he added.
–IANS
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