Former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was arrested on corruption charges this week, has been granted bail for a period of two weeks by a Pakistani court.
The country’s primary opposition leader was granted bail by a two-member bench of the Islamabad High Court on Friday after being apprehended by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), an anti-corruption agency.
The leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party was taken into custody on Tuesday at the same court. However, on Thursday evening, the Supreme Court ruled Khan’s arrest as “illegal” and directed authorities to present him before the Islamabad High Court on Friday.
Imran Khan’s bail petition related to the Al-Qadir Trust case was scheduled for a hearing on Friday morning, but it was postponed for nearly four hours, including a prayer break. The former cricketer-turned-politician has been accused in over 100 cases, including corruption, “terrorism,” and blasphemy, since being ousted from power last year in a parliamentary no-confidence vote.
The case of Al-Qadir Trust pertains to the land purchased by Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi from property tycoon Malik Riaz, with the intention of building an educational institute for their Al-Qadir University Trust. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has accused Khan’s PTI government of engaging in a quid pro quo agreement with Riaz. The government is alleged to have facilitated Riaz in laundering more than $239m while causing a loss to the national exchequer.
Khan informed the journalists that he had been “abducted” from the court premises on Tuesday while he was waiting for the resumption of his high court hearing.
“I was sitting in the high court. They had no reason to arrest me. I was abducted from here. And when I was taken away, only then I was shown the warrant for arrest,” the 70-year-old said.
“Is this the rule of jungle? And the military abducted me. Where is the police? Where is the law? It almost seems like martial law has been declared here,” Khan said.
