Imran Khan's party demands his immediate release

Islamabad: Jailed former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan's party has denounced his continued detention in several "fabricated" cases and demanded his immediate release.

The core committee of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party in its meeting on Thursday, discussed various issues, especially the delay of appeals in cases against its founding chairman, the security of his wife, Bushra Bibi, and the recount of votes in various constituencies in Punjab in detail.

According to a statement, the PTI legal team provided an overview to the core committee regarding Khan’s cases.

The forum strongly condemned the incarceration of the 71-year-old cricketer-turned-politician chairman in several cases.

They made it clear that the state’s intentions to subject Khan to “political vendetta” had been fully evident from the speedy trial in "fabricated" cases like the Toshakhana corruption case and the cipher case, where he was handed down sentences in a hasty manner.

Bushra, 49, is imprisoned at Khan's Bani Gala residence after an accountability court sentenced the couple to 14 years in jail in the Toshakhana corruption case last month.

Khan is lodged at the high-security Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi. Both of them have been convicted with multiple years’ sentences in the Toshakhana expensive gift case and the iddat case which declared their marriage as un-Islamic.

The PTI core committee expressed annoyance over the tactics used to delay appeals against court decisions.

The participants demanded that all the cases against Imran Khan should proceed according to the Constitution and law, and orders should be issued for the release of the PTI founding chairman by ending all these cases forthwith.

The committee voiced serious concerns regarding threats to the health and life of former first lady Bushra.

Members strongly denounced her detention in Banigala sub-jail against her will, endangering her life. The forum called for providing foolproof security to the former first lady and immediate redressal of threats to her health and life.

Moreover, the forum termed the recounting of votes in various constituencies of Punjab as unconstitutional, adding that after February 8, the constitutional seats of PTI were being stolen under the pretext of “unconstitutional” vote recounts and were being gifted to PML-N.

The PTI core committee reiterated its demand that all those constituencies should also be audited in the light of the actual Form-45s and all PTI’s “stolen” seats should be returned to the party under the Constitution and law.

The ex-prime minister, along with former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, was handed down a sentence of 10 years each in the cipher case in January for publishing contents of a secret cable sent by the country's ambassador in Washington to the government in Islamabad.

The cipher case pertains to a piece of paper, purported to be a diplomatic cable -- the cipher -- that Khan had waved at a public rally on March 27, 2022, and naming the US, had claimed that it was ‘evidence’ of an “international conspiracy” to topple his government.