PTI founder chairman Imran Khan is getting relief from the courts but the authorities have options to keep the former prime minister in jail indefinitely.
One after another, the cases against Imran Khan are being dropped, which has raised hopes among PTI leaders and workers that the party’s senior-most leaders may come out of jail in a few weeks. But the thinking of official sources is different.
At a time when Imran Khan’s controversial tweet regarding the 1971 incident has given the FIA an opportunity to consider establishing another case against Imran Khan and others, NAB has filed Tosha Khana Reference II against Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi. Waiting for the right time to do it.
Sources say that this move will ensure that both the husband and wife remain behind bars despite being acquitted in the Iddat case. The court has sentenced Imran Khan in four different cases. In three cases, Imran Khan and his co-accused have either been acquitted or their sentences have been suspended. Now there is only one case in which Imran Khan’s conviction is a major obstacle to his release from jail.
Informed sources say that NAB’s investigation regarding Tosha Khana case II has been completed and now it is ready to file a reference in the accountability court against Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi. A source said the reference would be filed in due course.
In NAB’s first Tosha Khana reference, Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi were sentenced to 14 years in prison and a fine of over one billion rupees by the accountability court before the February 8 elections. But when an appeal was filed in the Islamabad High Court, the court suspended the sentence of Imran and his wife.
Before the intervention of NAB, Imran Khan suffered twice in the same Tosha Khana scandal. On October 21, 2022, the Election Commission of Pakistan disqualified Imran Khan from the National Assembly for five years for the crime of hiding facts related to selling expensive gifts.
A four-member bench headed by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja delivered a decision at the Election Commission Secretariat, according to which a decision was taken to initiate criminal proceedings against Imran Khan for making false statements.
Following the order against Imran Khan, the Election Commission of Pakistan referred the criminal case against the former prime minister to the Islamabad Sessions Court, which in August last year convicted the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief in the Tosha Khana case and sentenced him to three years in prison. Sentenced to
At the appeal stage, the Islamabad High Court also suspended the said sentence. In the cipher case, Imran Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi were sentenced to 10 years in prison by a special court, but the Islamabad High Court acquitted both of them on Monday. Imran Khan has also been acquitted in many cases related to May 9.
At present, the punishment of Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi in the Iddat case is a major obstacle to their release from jail. In that case, both were sentenced to seven years in prison shortly before the February 8 election. Last week, Imran Khan’s legal experts and the party were hoping for the acquittal of both the husband and wife in the Iddat case, but the judge who announced the previously reserved decision after Khawar Manika expressed no confidence in the court, said that A request was sent to the Chief Justice of Lahore High Court to present the case before another judge.