By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The sister of jailed opposition leader Imran Khan has petitioned a court in Islamabad to end his “unlawful solitary confinement”, alleging the former prime minister has lost most of his sight and has been denied family visits for six months.
The petition, filed before the Islamabad High Court on Saturday by Aleema Khan through her lawyer Barrister Salman Safdar, contends that Khan has been held in isolation for 22 hours a day at Rawalpindi’s Adiala prison, where he is serving a 14-year sentence. His wife, Bushra Bibi, who is serving a seven-year term at the same facility, is allegedly confined around the clock, the filing states.
The case adds to mounting legal pressure over the treatment of the country’s most prominent political prisoner, whose Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party has waged a sustained campaign against what it calls the government’s deliberate mistreatment of the former cricket star since his arrest in August 2023.
The petition names the Adiala jail superintendent, the inspector general of prisons, the chairman of the National Accountability Bureau, the director general of the Federal Investigation Agency and the executive director of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences as respondents. It argues that no judicial order has authorised solitary confinement as a condition of Khan’s sentence, rendering the practice unlawful.
Aleema Khan said her brother had informed his legal counsel that his eyesight had deteriorated severely, with roughly 85 percent of his vision impaired. She asked the court to declare the isolation illegal and order authorities to end it.
A separate petition challenging Bushra Bibi’s alleged isolation was filed earlier this month by her daughter, Mubashra Khawar Maneka.
Khan, 72, was first imprisoned in August 2023 after a conviction for concealing state gifts. He was subsequently sentenced on January 17 this year to 14 years in prison — and Bushra Bibi to seven — by an accountability court in the Al-Qadir Trust case, which alleges the couple received land and billions of rupees from real estate developer Bahria Town in exchange for facilitating the legitimisation of around 50 billion rupees that Britain had identified and returned to Pakistan during their government’s tenure. Both have appealed their convictions, and the Islamabad High Court has scheduled a hearing for Monday.
Khan’s eyesight became a public issue in late January when he was diagnosed with right central retinal vein occlusion, a condition that restricts blood flow to the retina. A government-arranged medical team that examined him in February found his right eye had 6/24 unaided vision, improving to 6/9 partial with corrective lenses, while his left eye tested at 6/9 unaided and 6/6 with glasses. A course of medical procedures began on January 24; the fifth was carried out on June 15.
The dispute over his medical care has become a political flashpoint. His party and family have demanded that he be allowed access to his own physicians and a hospital of his choosing, and have complained of being given no advance notice of his hospital visits. The government has rejected the accusations, insisting that appropriate treatment is being provided.
The petition filed on Saturday also states that no family member or PTI official has been permitted to visit Khan in the past six months, a claim likely to intensify calls from the opposition for independent oversight of his detention.
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