By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, on Friday asked the Islamabad High Court to immediately schedule their long-pending appeals to overturn a graft conviction and suspend their sentences in a separate corruption case, accusing the prosecution of “inordinate delays” and “dilatory tactics” that have kept them behind bars for years.
In a flurry of petitions filed under Section 561-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the couple also demanded that the court order prison authorities at Adiala Jail to allow unhindered access to their legal team. The filings come amid what the petitioners described as repeated adjournments and procedural maneuvering by the National Accountability Bureau that have frustrated any meaningful progress in their cases.
The appeals target a Jan. 31, 2024, judgment by Accountability Court No. 1 in Islamabad that convicted Khan and Bibi in the Toshakhana I case and sentenced each to 14 years in prison. The Islamabad High Court suspended those sentences in April 2024, but the underlying convictions remain unresolved. A separate set of applications seeks suspension of sentences in the £190 million Al-Qadir Trust corruption case. On March 31, the high court adjourned a hearing on those suspension requests after the defense lawyer asked for time to obtain fresh instructions from his clients.
The petitions filed Friday argued that the original trial court judgment in the Toshakhana case showed a lack of “proper application of judicial mind” and suffered from “serious misreading and non-reading of material evidence.” They also highlighted Khan’s deteriorating health, specifically a diagnosis of right central retinal vein occlusion, and said the specialized treatment he requires is not available inside Adiala Jail. The former prime minister’s eye condition has drawn public attention since it was first reported earlier this year.
Bibi, 54, was portrayed in the filings as a “parda-nasheen” woman with no history of holding public office who has been drawn into the cases solely because of her marriage to Khan. In a separate application, she asked the court to decide on the merits of her request to suspend her seven-year sentence in the Al-Qadir Trust case. That plea, filed under Section 426 of the criminal procedure code, has been pending for more than 10 months; notices were first issued on May 15, 2025.
The application accused the National Accountability Bureau of “procedural manoeuvring” and repeated delays, including prosecutors’ failure to appear or requests for additional preparation time, even after the court had directed the matter to be fixed for hearing. Bibi has already served more than a year of her sentence, the filing noted, and as a female accused she is entitled to statutory leniency.
Both petitioners emphasised the practical impossibility of preparing their defence while imprisoned. They told the court they have been unable to meet freely with their lawyers, a situation they said violates their constitutional rights under Article 9 (security of person), Article 10-A (right to fair trial) and Article 14 (inviolability of the dignity of man and privacy of the home).
Lead counsel Barrister Salman Safdar filed a separate application stating that he has been denied access to his clients for nearly three months, making it impossible to obtain the “fresh instructions” needed to advance the main appeals. The legal team also includes senior lawyers Salman Akram Raja and Barrister Ali Zafar. Last year the high court had directed that Khan be allowed twice-weekly meetings — on Tuesdays and Thursdays — with family members, lawyers and other associates. Despite that order, the petitioners said, such access has been largely curtailed in recent weeks.
The filings urged the court to act quickly, invoking the principle that “justice should not only be done but also be seen to be done.” Prolonged delays, the couple argued, risk causing “irreparable loss” to their right to a fair and timely adjudication of the cases against them.
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