Imran Khan gets reprieve from sentence; court grants release
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Islamabad: Pakistan's former prime minister, who has been in jail following conviction in a corruption case, is soon to be out on bail. An appeals court in Pakistan suspended Khan’s three-year prison sentence on Tuesday, in the latest twist in a political tussle that has been going through the judicial process, between Khan and leaders of the powerful military establishment.
Khan was arrested earlier this month after a trial court gave him the three-year term in a corruption case, called the Toshakhana case involving sale of gifts received by him while he was president. And it is this sentence that the Islamabad High Court suspended on Tuesday after an appeal by Khan's legal team. Earlier, he was successful in getting bail a few times before finally being arrested and convicted on the corruption charges which the current government has been assiduously pursing to put Imran Khan in jail.
The grounds of the court's suspension of the sentence is not immediately clear. Nor is it known if he would get a prompt release from prison.
The decision offered what could be a temporary reprieve for the former cricket star turned populist politician who has been fighting to make a political comeback since he was ousted from power last year.
The possibility that Khan could remain behind bars or be rearrested after he is released looms over him. He faces dozens of court cases, part of what he and his allies have characterized as a coordinated effort by the military to keep him out of politics.
For some, Khan Khan had managed a resistance at the political level, with street power by drawing thousands to rallies where he accused military generals of orchestrating his ouster.
But in recent months, the political winds seemed to shift, as the military embarked on a sweeping campaign to hollow out Mr. Khan’s political party. That included columnists sympathetic to him being intimidated, supporters protesting against the military being jailed, and party leaders being forced to desert him after they said they were threatened with criminal charges.