By Naveed Naqvi
ISLAMABAD: Former Prime Minister Imran Khan was granted bail on Friday for two weeks by the Islamabad High Court in a land corruption case, after his arrest sparked deadly protests across the country.
Khan’s legal team had sought bail on multiple charges in the capital, expressing concerns that the government might concoct additional cases to detain him. The court partially granted these requests.
A day prior to the bail decision, the Supreme Court had declared Khan’s arrest invalid and unlawful.
Khan appeared before the same court, the Islamabad High Court, on Friday, where he had been apprehended by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Tuesday.
The court granted him two weeks of protective bail, prohibiting authorities from arresting him until May 17 in any case registered against him or the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party chief within the jurisdiction of Islamabad after May 9, the day of his arrest.
“The Islamabad High Court has given a two week bail and also ordered the NAB (anti-graft body) not to arrest Imran Khan during this period,” his lawyer Faisal Chaudhry told reporters.
Footage from television cameras showed the former premier entering the court earlier in the day wearing dark glasses, a sky blue shalwar kameez, and a dark waistcoat. He was surrounded by lawyers and security forces. As he walked into the court, Khan waved at the cameras and made a victory sign with his fingers.
“They had no reason to arrest me, they abducted me,” Khan told reporters when the hearing recessed for Friday prayers and before he was granted bail. “They showed me an [arrest] warrant after taking me to jail, this happens if there is the rule of the jungle.”
Commenting on his arrest being carried out by paramilitary Rangers officials, Khan said:
“And the army abducts me. Where was the police? Where was the law? This is the law of the jungle, rather it seems that martial law has been declared.”
After the court order was announced, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said: “We have instructed our forces out there that court orders should be followed and there shouldn’t be any violation of the court ruling.”
A statement released by the Prime Minister’s office after Khan’s bail “condemned in strong terms the extraordinary intervention” of the chief justice in the case against Khan, which ultimately let the IHC to retake the issue of whether his arrest was legal and grant him bail on Friday.
PM Sharif also criticized the country’s judiciary for being “lenient” with Khan in televised comments. “The judiciary is standing like an iron wall to protect Imran,” Sharif said.
This week’s clashes have left at least six people dead, one in the southwestern city of Quetta and five in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. Thousands of people have been arrested and the government has called in army troops to help restore order in Islamabad as well as the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. Public gatherings are also banned in Punjab, KP and Islamabad.
Khan, who was ousted as prime minister last year in a parliamentary no-trust vote, faces more than legal 100 cases, with charges ranging from terrorism and sedition to corruption and inciting violence and threatening police and government officials. A new terrorism charge was filed against him and several top aides on Thursday for allegedly inciting his followers to violence after his arrest.
Khan has denied all the charges against him and has accused the current government of being a “puppet” of the United States. He has also called for early elections, which the government has so far resisted.
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