'Manipulation' keeps Imran Khan in prison despite bail, lawyers say

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has remained in prison despite the Islamabad High Court suspending his recent conviction on corruption charges, with his lawyers claiming that a "manipulation of justice" is keeping him behind bars. 

Khan's legal team said on Tuesday afternoon he remained in detention because of a previous arrest, made in secret, over a case alleging he had leaked classified state documents.

One of his lawyers told reporters outside the prison that Khan was "on judicial remand" and would appear before a special court in Islamabad on Wednesday.

"He was arrested prior to today's court ruling. The exact date of his arrest remains unclear," another lawyer, Gohar Khan, was quoted as saying.

Another, Muhammad Shoaib Shaheen, said that "his legal team was intentionally left uninformed and kept in the dark". "This constitutes a manipulation of justice," he said.

Pro-PTI lawyers held banners and chanted "Release Imran Khan!" and "Khan your devotees are countless!" outside the court as initial news of his sentence suspension broke.

Khan ally and former Speaker of National Assembly Asad Qaiser has said today’s verdict in the graft case was evidence Khan’s sentence and imprisonment were carried out in “haste”.

“If an attempt is made to arrest Chairman Imran Khan in other cases after his release, it will be an attempt to push the country towards anarchy. At this time, the only way to save the country from further crises is to have clean and transparent elections as soon as possible,” Qaiser posted on social media platform X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

The Islamabad High Court overturned a lower court's decision to jail him for three years, a judgment that kept him from contesting upcoming elections.

His lawyers said he was granted bail and they were initially hopeful he would be released from Attock Jail, a century-old prison around 60 kilometers west of Islamabad, where the 70-year-old has been held for three weeks.  

Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said later said nine activists had been arrested outside Attock Jail.

The sentence was handed down this month by a judge who found him guilty of failing to properly declare gifts he received while in office.

US State Dept. pushed for ex-Pakistan PM’s removal in 2022, secret cable document reveals

A US publication has obtained a classified document, suggesting Washington pushed for the removal of Imran Khan from office over his neutrality on the Ukraine war.

The ex-PM’s legal team lodged the appeal against his conviction on the grounds that he was put to jail without being given the right to defend himself.

That was only one of more than 200 legal cases that have embroiled Pakistan's most popular politician since he was ousted by a parliamentary vote last year.  

The Islamabad High Court's decision to suspend the conviction marks another victory for Khan and comes on the heels of the Balochistan High Court’s decision to dismiss sedition charges against him.

The 70-year-old cricketer-turned-politician lost a confidence vote in the parliament in April 2022. Since his ouster has been at the centre of political turmoil across Pakistan.

Khan believes that the cases lodged against him were politically motivated to keep him out of power. He alleges the country’s powerful military is behind these cases.

In the past months, Pakistani authorities have made widespread arrests targeting the PTI party in an attempt to allegedly crush his grassroots support.

No date for the polls has been announced. Khan surged to power in 2018 on a wave of popular support, through an anti-corruption manifesto.

From Pakistan to Peru, US bids to subvert elections, topple governments

If Americans want to know how it feels to have their elections and democratic processes subverted, maybe they should ask Iran, or Peru, or Pakistan. Maybe they can throw a dart at any country in Latin America and ask them about election interference.

Did the US ask for Khan’s removal after he visited Russia?

The US-based news outlet The Intercept earlier this month published what it claims to be the details of a diplomatic “cypher” – or a secret cable – that suggests the US administration wanted to remove Khan from power last year.

Khan alleged he knew of the “cypher” while he was in office which, according to him, proved the US hatched a conspiracy with the help of his political opponents and the Pakistani military to remove him.

US intervention in Pakistan

A leaked classified document shows Washington pushed for the removal of the former Pakistani premier from office over his neutrality in the Ukraine war.

The Intercept published purported details of a conversation between Pakistan’s then-ambassador to the US, Asad Majeed, and Donald Lu, the assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, on March 7 last year.

In the meeting, Lu reportedly told Majeed the US and Europe were “quite concerned” about Khan visiting Russia and Pakistan taking an “aggressively neutral position” on Russia’s military operation against Ukraine

The conversation, according to the report, took place less than two weeks after Khan visited Moscow on February 24, the day Russia launched the operation.

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