By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court on Thursday scheduled a March 11 hearing on petitions by former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, seeking suspension of their sentences in a major £190 million corruption case, as defence lawyers highlighted the former leader’s sudden eye ailment and what they described as inordinate delays in the proceedings.
A division bench headed by Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar and including Justice Muhammad Azam Khan resumed hearings on miscellaneous applications pressing for an early date for the main appeals. The court expressed displeasure when dozens of lawyers affiliated with Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party stood up and approached the rostrum en masse. “What is this? Are you trying to influence the court?” Chief Justice Dogar asked from the bench, according to court proceedings. “Not at all,” replied Khan’s counsel, Barrister Salman Sardar.
Sardar argued that the matter had taken on greater urgency because of Khan’s eye condition, for which he had recently been taken to a hospital. He noted that Bibi, despite being a woman, was serving a seven-year prison term, and that her petition for suspension of sentence had only been fixed for hearing after six months. “We request you to suspend the sentence. The last order was passed on November 9,” he contended.
The chief justice observed that many miscellaneous civil applications seeking early hearings had become infructuous but directed that office objections on the suspension petitions be overruled. When Sardar requested the petitions be fixed for the following week, Dogar instructed the registrar’s office to schedule both the suspension applications and the main criminal appeals for March 11.
In a related development, Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro of the same court removed office objections on separate petitions by Khan and Bibi seeking suspension of their sentences in the Toshakhana 2.0 case. The judge directed the registrar to number those petitions along with the appeals against their convictions and fix them for hearing in line with court policy.
Khan, who has been imprisoned since August 2023, is serving a 14-year sentence in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail following his conviction in the £190 million case, also known as the Al-Qadir Trust case. An accountability court in Islamabad sentenced him and Bibi to 14 and seven years in prison, respectively, on Jan. 17, 2025. The couple challenged the convictions before the high court on Jan. 27. The case centers on allegations that Khan and Bibi obtained billions of rupees and hundreds of kanals of land from Bahria Town Ltd. in exchange for facilitating the legalisation of Rs50 billion — roughly £190 million at the time — that had been identified and returned to Pakistan by British authorities during Khan’s tenure as prime minister. The funds originated from assets seized by Britain’s National Crime Agency from the property tycoon Malik Riaz, which Pakistan’s government under Khan had helped resolve as a civil matter.
Separately, an Islamabad special court on Dec. 20, 2025, sentenced the couple to a total of 17 years in prison in the Toshakhana 2.0 case involving the purchase at a discounted price of a Bulgari jewelry set gifted to Khan by the Saudi crown prince during an official visit in May 2021. Khan’s legal team has repeatedly pressed the high court for expedited hearings on his various pending cases. In January, his counsel wrote to Chief Justice Dogar requesting the consolidation of all matters against the former prime minister and urgent listings, arguing that repeated adjournments and delays had caused serious prejudice. PTI leaders have voiced frustration over the pace.
A day earlier, Khan’s sister Aleema Khanum criticized the delays. “We come and sit in court for hours, but cases are not fixed,” she said. PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja noted that contempt petitions against the Adiala jail administration for allegedly failing to comply with high court orders on jail meetings had not been heard, describing the IHC as a “closed door” for the party.
On Wednesday, PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan lamented that pleas for sentence suspension in the £190 million Al-Qadir Trust case had been pending for over a year, despite judicial policy calling for decisions within 35 to 60 days. Speaking to journalists outside the court after Thursday’s proceedings, Barrister Salman Sardar said the hearing pertained to Khan’s case but that his team had not received the necessary power-of-attorney documents due to what he called negligence by the jail superintendent. He expressed concern over the long interval until the next hearing. “The case hearing had been adjourned to March 11,” he added, “and the long interval between hearings was troubling.”
Khan’s sister Aleema Khan told reporters that the extended delays were “distressing” and pointed to her brother’s serious eye condition. Another family member, Uzma Khan, urged political actors not to politicise the former prime minister’s health and called for doctors to issue a public report on his medical condition. PTI lawyer Advocate Khalid Yousaf Chaudhry said it was the first hearing in the couple’s cases in seven months. He noted that the appeal in the Toshakhana case had been pending for two months and that a regular appeal number had now been allotted.
The developments come as Khan also faces pending trials under the Anti-Terrorism Act related to the May 9, 2023, riots. His party has additionally approached the Supreme Court seeking early fixation of the concealment of assets case and access to medical treatment at a hospital of his choice.
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