ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan’s legal team said on Wednesday they were hopeful a Pakistani high court would accept his appeal and transfer him to a prison with better facilities, days after he began serving a sentence following his conviction and arrest on graft charges.
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) took up jailed Khan’s appeal on Wednesday against his conviction on corruption charges, seeking responses from the federal and Punjab governments over why he was being kept at a facility that houses hardened criminals and does not have facilities that political prisoners are entitled to.
Khan was on Tuesday barred from holding any public office for five years after he began a three-year sentence last week on charges of unlawfully selling state gifts acquired by him and his family during his 2018-2022 tenure. Khan, who has denied any wrongdoing, was arrested at his Lahore house and taken to Attock Jail near Islamabad.
Khan’s lawyer Sher Afzal Khan Marwat told reporters during a news conference that the former premier’s legal team pleaded with the court to suspend the sentence against him as per Section 425 of Pakistan’s Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). The section relates to the suspension of sentence and release of the appellant on bail.
“The chief justice of Pakistan heard Khan’s petition today to be provided A or B-Class jail facilities and be shifted to the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, while also being permitted to meet or communicate with his lawyers, wife, or other family members,” Marwat said.
“While we haven’t received a written judgment yet, the court, I think, has granted permission to Khan in accordance with the law.”
Khan’s lawyers maintained in the petition that owing to his “education, habits and social and political status,” he ought to be provided better or A-class facilities in jail.
However, the opposition politician was given B-Class facilities by the Punjab prisons department, while his lawyers said he was being kept in “distressing conditions” in Attock in “C-Class jail facilities,” the lowest category.
Khan, 70, has been at the heart of political turmoil since he was ousted as prime minister in a vote of no-confidence last year, raising concerns about Pakistan’s stability as it grapples with an economic crisis.
