By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The jailed wife of former prime minister Imran Khan has asked the Islamabad High Court to order an immediate eye examination and to let her be treated by doctors of her choice, at her own expense, saying her eyesight is deteriorating in prison.
Bushra Bibi, 54, filed a miscellaneous application on Saturday in connection with her pending appeals in the £190m Al-Qadir Trust corruption case. It asks the court to direct the superintendent of Adiala jail in Rawalpindi to produce a fresh, comprehensive medical report and her complete medical record, including details of her diagnosis and treatment.
The plea also seeks an immediate consultation with a specialist ophthalmologist, in the presence of the jail medical officer, and arrangements for treatment at a specialised facility outside the prison. It describes her eye condition as deteriorating rapidly and urges the court to intervene so that her sight is not further damaged by delay. The application was filed through her lawyers, Salman Safdar and Khalid Yousaf Chaudhry.
Safdar, who represents both Bibi and Khan, submitted an affidavit to the court on the same day. It describes his meeting with the couple at Adiala jail on 2 November, ahead of a hearing scheduled for 10 November.
According to the affidavit, jail authorities told him on 31 October that the meeting had been set for 3.30pm on 2 November. It began at 4pm and lasted about 40 minutes.
Safdar said Bibi wore exceptionally dark glasses throughout. When she removed them at his request and her husband’s, she appeared to be in severe distress, and he told the court her eyes appeared to be in an “extremely vulnerable condition”.
She told them she could tolerate neither sunlight nor artificial light and could not open her eyes without the glasses, he said. He added that he felt her eyesight had been severely affected, and that Khan appeared visibly worried.
Bibi also told her lawyer that doctors who had examined her diagnosed a mature cataract and advised that another operation would be needed around 15 November, the affidavit states. She expressed dissatisfaction with hygiene standards in the prison and with the medical treatment she was receiving, and asked that her examination and treatment be carried out by her own doctors. Safdar said he assured her he would bring the matter to the court’s notice.
Her eyesight has been a recurring subject in the courts this year. She underwent her first eye operation in April and was then returned to Adiala jail. The new application refers to a medical report submitted to the Supreme Court in August, which set out her earlier complications and treatment, including surgery at Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital in Rawalpindi. A separate application to the Federal Constitutional Court said she was diagnosed with posterior vitreous detachment in her right eye on 28 March.
Bibi is serving a seven-year sentence in the Al-Qadir Trust case. In January 2025, Accountability Court Judge Nasir Javed Rana sentenced Mr Khan to 14 years and his wife to seven, fining them Rs1m and Rs500,000 respectively. The Islamabad High Court rejected their applications to suspend those sentences in May, with the main appeals still pending.
The couple were also sentenced to 17 years each in December 2025 in the Toshakhana-II case. That case centred on the purchase of an expensive jewellery set gifted to Mr Khan by the Saudi crown prince during a visit in May 2021.
Khan, the founder of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has faced his own health concerns in custody. Safdar last met him on 9 April, after the high court allowed discussion of the £190m case. Bibi was not allowed to attend that 60-minute meeting. In a statement afterwards, he claimed the couple were being held in solitary confinement for almost 24 hours a day, with no access to books, television, family or lawyers.
In May, Safdar told the court that Khan had reported a significant deterioration in his eyesight. On 18 August, the Supreme Court ordered that Mr Khan be moved within two days to Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad for examination and treatment. He was instead taken to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences on 20 August, declared medically fit and returned to Adiala.
His sister, Noreen Niazi, met him at the jail on 18 August for about 15 minutes, their first meeting in around nine months.
Government authorities allowed Safdar to see the couple this week after a gap of several months.
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