Pakistan: Islamabad High Court orders release of former PM Imran Khan on terrorism charges

In the Toshakhana reference case, the Islamabad High Court on August 28 overturned the earlier ruling from August 5 and ordered the release of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The decision was rendered by a divided bench consisting of Chief Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri.

Imran Khan was given a three-year prison term by an Islamabad court earlier in August. The former prime minister is presently incarcerated in Rawalpindi's Attock Jail.

He had been convicted of corruption in proceedings involving the Toshakhana, the state gift repository, by a district and sessions court. Imran Khan is still ineligible to hold any public office as a result of the conviction. Soon after the court decision earlier this month, he was taken into custody.

Imran Khan filed the appeal in the Islamabad High Court against his conviction and also approached the Supreme Court against the decision taken by the high court where it remanded the case back to the trial court judge who had convicted him.

Amjad Pervaiz, an attorney for the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), asserted that the arguments against the maintainability of the ECP's lawsuit lacked merit and that the Imran Khan legal team's witnesses were irrelevant because they were merely tax consultants.

The defence team for Imran Khan had asked for the court to declare the conviction and sentencing in the case to be void and to suspend Imran Khan's sentence. Furthermore, it declared that the ECP's charge against Imran Khan was unfounded.

Aleema Khan and Uzma Khan, Imran's sisters, were also in the court. In the meantime, Imran Khan will need to be arrested in a number of other cases that are still outstanding, according to the former interior minister Rana Sanaullah.

Khan is accused of buying the presents he got as prime minister for a very low price and then selling them on the open market for astronomical profits.

He continues to be charged with abusing his position as prime minister from 2018 to 2022 to acquire and dispose of presents that belonged to the government and were valued at more than $635,000 or PKR 140 million.