Imran Khan, Pakistan's ex-PM, may be released on 11 June: Report

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, lodged at the Adiala Jail since August 2023 in multiple cases, may get bail on June 11 in the Al-Qadir Trust case, reported PTI, quoting a top party leader.

According to the report, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) is set to hear the petitions on 11 June which requested the suspension of sentences to Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi in the 190 million Pound Al-Qadir Trust case.

Gohar Ali Khan, chief of Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), expressed confidence that the party’s founder would secure bail that day. Gohar Ali Khan stated that 11 June is going to be an important day for both Khan and his wife.

Earlier, the IHC had postponed the hearing of petitions in the Al-Qadir Trust case until June 11. The adjournment came after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) requested additional time to prepare its arguments, ARY News reported.

Gohar told ARY News on Saturday that the PTI will collaborate with opposition parties to launch a movement, which will be led by the party’s patron-in-chief from jail.

Gohar requested the opposition parties to join PTI for the sake of the country’s survival and security and revealed that a strategy for the upcoming budget has been finalised. “The party will address a press conference on June 9 regarding it,” he said.

Earlier last month, Khan had said he will lead his party’s upcoming protest movement against the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) led coalition government at the Centre, from the prison.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister and a prominent leader of Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, Ali Amin Gandapur, earlier this week threatened to launch a full-scale movement for the cricketer-turned-politician's release after Eid Al-Adha.

‘Mother of all rigging’:

Imran Khan, convicted in a few of multiple cases filed against him, has repeatedly claimed the February 8 general elections of last year to have witnessed the ‘Mother of All Rigging.’

He has called his rivals the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) as “mandate thieves.”

Meanwhile, Gohar claimed Khan's wife Bushra Bibi, was being held in jail without any charges to pressure the PTI founder and claimed no deals will be made for the founder’s release. He also dismissed rumours of internal rifts within PTI.

Some years ago, the National Crime Agency (NCA) of the United Kingdom agreed to a settlement worth 190 million pounds with the family of property tycoon Malik Riaz.

According to an earlier report in Dawn, the NCA, in August 2019, declared that it was granted freezing orders on eight bank accounts containing 100 million pounds, “suspected to have derived from bribery and corruption in an overseas nation.”

The NCA said it had informed the then government, run by Khan's PTI. It is alleged that Khan asked Shehzad Akbar, his aide on accountability, to resolve the matter, who in turn, “settled” the case with the frozen funds belonging to the national treasury being adjusted against Bahria Town’s liability, the Dawn said.

Bahria Town Ltd, Malik’s real estate firm, was found to have illegally acquired thousands of acres of land on Karachi’s outskirts in district Malir. It had donated hundreds of acres of land to the Al-Qadir Trust, a non-profit that has only two trustees – Khan and Bushra Bibi.

With agency inputs.