April 2, 2024 (EIRNS)—The Islamabad High Court granted the country’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan leave to appeal his conviction for graft, and suspended his 14-year jail sentence, according to Reuters, citing his lawyer. However, Khan remains in prison, facing scores of charges against him.
One week before Pakistan’s Feb. 9 elections, Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi, were each handed a 14-year sentence, accused of selling state gifts—over $500,000 worth of perfumes, jewelry, watches—over a five-year period. His lawyer, Barrister Ali Zafar, said that the Islamabad High Court had ruled that the sentence would be suspended until a final decision on the convictions. He claimed that the lack of any evidence was why the court acted on the very first hearing of the appeal. The conviction, if meant to complete the suppression of Khan’s party’s vote in the election, failed miserably, as candidates affiliated with him placed far ahead of his rivals.
Earlier, Khan had been given a 10-year sentence for leaking state secrets. This was the 2022 cable from Pakistan’s Ambassador to Washington, reporting that the U.S. was organizing Khan’s removal from power with elements of Pakistan’s military, due to his lack of support for isolating Russia. It was a real cable, Khan was the Prime Minister, and the operation was a live operation—so, apparently, the crime was informing Pakistanis that a foreign power was overthrowing their own government.
