ISLAMABAD — A federal high court in Pakistan on Wednesday approved the bail application of former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s wife, ordering her release after months of imprisonment related to corruption allegations.
The lawsuit against former first lady Bushra Bibi involves the alleged sale of state gifts worth half a million dollars during Khan’s time in office from 2018 to 2022, charges Bibi and Khan rejected as unfounded and politically motivated.
It remained uncertain whether Bibi would be allowed to leave prison anytime soon, given the many other legal challenges the couple has faced since a parliamentary no-confidence vote ousted Khan’s government 18 months ago.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, Party of the deposed prime minister praised Wednesday’s court ruling but accused the authorities of employing delaying tactics to continue Bibi’s “unlawful incarceration.”
The statement reiterated that Bibi is a housewife and that the case against her arose from a nontransparent investigation, labeling the charges as baseless.
Khan, who has been imprisoned since August 2023, and his wife are in Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, a garrison city next to Islamabad. Bibi has been detained since January after being sentenced, along with Khan, to 14 years in a separate graft case, although an appeals court suspended the sentence weeks later for a lack of evidence.
Subsequently, appeals courts overturned or suspended other convictions and sentences, but Pakistani authorities refused to release the couple, instead announcing new charges against them in July related to the alleged sale of state gifts.
Khan, 72, faces numerous charges, including corruption and violence against state institutions, all of which the former prime minister says are orchestrated at the behest of the powerful Pakistani military to keep him from returning to national politics, charges his successors and military officials denied.
The legal challenges have prevented the former cricket star-turned-politician from pursuing public office. His party was banned from participating in the national election in February. Khan maintains that the election was rigged to allow pro-military parties to secure victory.
In June, a panel of independent United Nations experts urged Pakistan to end Khan’s incarceration, saying his detention had “no legal basis.”
New chief justice
Meanwhile, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday approved the selection of the country’s next chief justice, who was recommended under newly enacted constitutional amendments that critics decried as detrimental to judicial independence.
Justice Yahya Afridi, the third-most senior judge after the outgoing chief justice, was picked by a government-dominated parliamentary committee on Tuesday, a day after a ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif hastily amended the constitution.
Previously, the judge who was second in seniority would automatically take over as the country’s chief justice when the top judge retired at 65.
Law Minister Azam Tarar said that Afridi will replace the outgoing Supreme Court chief justice, who retires on Friday, for a three-year term in line with the new constitutional amendments.
Khan’s PTI denounced the legislation as an assault on Pakistan’s judicial independence, saying judges handpicked by the Sharif government would decide everything.
U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk said he was concerned about the constitutional amendments. In a brief statement that his office posted on X, he noted that the changes “were adopted hastily, without broad consultation and debate.”
Turk warned that these changes “will seriously undermine the independence of the judiciary” and emphasized the importance of aligning constitutional reforms with international human rights law.
The Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists, or ICJ, described the new legislation as “a blow to judicial independence, the rule of law and human rights protection” in Pakistan.
“These changes bring an extraordinary level of political influence over the process of judicial appointments and the judiciary’s own administration,” said Santiago Canton, ICJ’s secretary general. “They erode the judiciary’s capacity to independently and effectively function as a check against excesses by other branches of the state and protect human rights,” Canton said.
Sharif and his Cabinet ministers have defended the constitutional changes, claiming they would prevent alleged judicial interference in governance matters that led to the dismissal of successive governments in Pakistan.
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