Couple\u2019s hopes of release dampen after arrest in new Toshakhana reference by NAB
\n RAWALPINDI
\nAn accountability court on Sunday approved eight-day physical remand each of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder and former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, in a fresh graft reference.
\nThe order comes less than a day after the PTI founder and his wife were acquitted in the iddat or illegal marriage case, but their hopes of coming out of prison were dampened as the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested them in a new Toshakhana reference.
\nAdditional Sessions Judge Muhammad Afzal Majoka had a day earlier nixed the couple\u2019s conviction \u2014 in which they were sentenced to seven years in prison and awarded a fine of Rs500,000 each after a trial court found their nikah to be fraudulent as Khawar Maneka, Bushra\u2019s ex-husband, moved the court against the couple\u2019s marriage.
\nHowever, soon after the verdict overturning their conviction, a team of the anti-corruption watchdog headed by Deputy Director Mohsin Haroon arrested the couple in the Adiala Jail in the new reference related to alleged \u201cmisuse of power for acquiring Toshakhana gifts\u201d.
\nThe PTI, after securing a key legal victory after a 13-member Supreme Court bench declared the party eligible for the allocation of reserved seats, was looking forward to their founder\u2019s release \u2014 which if it had happened would\u2019ve given a major boost to the former ruling party.
\nHowever, the accountability court today has directed the NAB to interrogate the two suspects in Adiala jail and also ordered to produce the couple before the court on July 22.
\nKhan\u2019s lawyer Zaheer Abbas Chaudhary, while speaking to media persons, said that NAB had requested a 14-day physical remand of PTI founder and Bushra.
\nChaudhary said that they opposed the physical remanded, pleading that they have engagements in the \u00a3190 million reference.
\nThe lawyer said that the ex-premier and his wife\u2019s arrest was against the law, adding that their petition seeking bail was already being heard in the Supreme Court.
\nPTI founder\u2019s legal woes
\nKhan has been behind bars since August last year after he was sentenced in the Toshakhana criminal case and subsequently sentenced in other cases ahead of the February 8 elections.
\nAlthough the former PM has been granted bail in several May 9 cases registered in Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Faisalabad, an anti-terrorism court (ATC) last week cancelled his bail in one of the May 9 cases registered against him and thousands of his supporters in connection with violence against the military and other state installations that erupted following his brief arrest in May 2023.
\nIn June, the Islamabad High Court overturned Khan\u2019s conviction on charges of leaking state secrets in the cipher case wherein he was handed down a 10-year prison sentence on charges of making public a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan\u2019s ambassador in Washington in 2022.
\nAlso, the ex-premier Khan was given jail sentences \u2014 one of 14 years and the other three years \u2014 in two cases pertaining to illegally acquiring and selling state gifts. Both sentences have been suspended by high courts while his appeals are heard \u2014 however, the conviction in both cases still stands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Couple\u2019s hopes of release dampen after arrest in new Toshakhana reference by NAB RAWALPINDI An accountability court on Sunday approved eight-day physical remand each of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder and former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, in a fresh graft reference. The order comes less than a day after the PTI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418260,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-418453","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n