ISLAMABAD: Arrangements were being made on Monday to move former prime minister Imran Khan to Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail from a high-security prison in Attock after an order from the Islamabad High Court (IHC), Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said.
Khan was arrested on Aug. 5 after a trial court in Islamabad found him guilty of “corrupt practices” in a case involving the unlawful sale of state gifts during his tenure as prime minister from 2018 to 2022. He has since been serving his sentence at Attock Jail.
The IHC suspended his sentence on Aug. 29 but he remains in jail on remand in another case in which he is charged with leaking state secrets. The latest extension of the remand order will keep Khan in jail until Sept. 26. Meanwhile, the former PM had filed a petition with the IHC seeking his transfer to Adiala Jail.
“Arrangements are being made,” Khan spokesperson Zulfikar Bukhari told reporters when asked if Khan had been moved to the Rawalpindi prison or was in the process of being shifted.
Separately, Khan’s lawyer Naeem Haider Panjutha spoke to reporters about his transfer plea hearing, saying the Islamabad High Court asked the prosecution team why Khan was being kept at Attock jail when a trial court had ordered authorities to send him to Adiala prison.
“We saw that the prosecution did not have any authentic arguments in response and they looked helpless,” Panjutha said.
Earlier in the day, Rawalpindi Central Jail Superintendent sent Khan’s production orders to his counterpart at the Attock jail, requesting that Khan be transferred to Rawalpindi prison for a hearing related to the case of the leaked secret documents. The Attock jail superintendent responded that shifting Khan would be a “security risk.”
But Khan’s lawyer said it was the state’s job “to provide security and protect citizens”:
“The court should have directed the administration to ensure he [Khan] should be presented with adequate security.”
In the state secrets case, Khan is charged with making public the contents of a confidential cable sent by Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States and using it for political gain, according to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
Khan alleges that the cable proves the United States had pressed Pakistan’s military to orchestrate the fall of his government because he had visited Russia shortly before its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Washington and the Pakistani military have denied Khan’s accusations.
Khan also faces a range of other legal cases he says are politically motivated
