Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was granted bail by an Islamabad court on Friday after the Supreme Court overturned his arrest, which sparked riots in the country.
“The court granted Imran Khan an interim two-week bail and ordered the authorities not to arrest him” again during this period in this corruption case, one of his lawyers, Khawaja Harris.
The former prime minister’s party confirmed that he left the court premises in the late afternoon and was heading for the city of Lahore, some 380 kilometers from the capital.
Mr. Khan, 70, also obtained bail in several other cases. The court also ruled that he could not be arrested again until Monday for any of the dozens of cases in which he is implicated, nor for the violence caused this week by his supporters.
But then he is safe from nothing. The Minister of the Interior, Rana Sanaullah, had also promised on Thursday that he would sooner or later be arrested again.
Mr. Khan believes that he is the object of judicial harassment instigated by the government and the army to prevent his return to power.
“The leader of the largest party in the country has been kidnapped in court and before the entire Nation,” he told AFP in the courtroom on Friday. “They treated me like a terrorist, it must have provoked a reaction (from his supporters). »
Pakistani courts are often used to stifle political opposition, say human rights defenders.
The former head of government was arrested on Tuesday when he was heard by the same Islamabad court in this corruption case, then remanded in custody the next day for a period of eight days.
“The government seems lost”
But on Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled his arrest “invalid and illegal” because it should not have been carried out in a courtroom. She requested that he appear again on Friday before the same court.
“Imran Khan emerges from this arrest with even greater political strength. The government seems to have underestimated the support it enjoys and seems lost,” greeted one of its supporters, Ijaz Alam, a coffee shop owner in Peshawar (north-west).
At the end of the day, the police, who had banned all gatherings, used tear gas in Islamabad to disperse supporters of Mr. Khan whom his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), had called to surrender in the capital.
Two new senior PTI officials, accused of orchestrating the violence, were arrested overnight – bringing their total to ten – the party said on Friday.
The arrest of Mr Khan, who was ousted in April 2022 but is counting on his popularity intact to return to power in the next election this year, has sparked violent protests across the country.
Hundreds of police were injured and more than 4,000 protesters arrested, mainly in the provinces of Punjab (central east) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (northwest), according to the police.
At least nine people have died in incidents linked to the protests, which were violently suppressed by security forces, according to police and hospitals.
Rarely in Pakistan, thousands of PTI supporters have attacked the symbols of the army, accusing it of having contributed to the ousting of its leader, in power since 2018.
Red line
The arrest of former cricket star Mr Khan marked a dramatic worsening of the crisis caused by his overthrow.
Imran Khan was deposed by a motion of no confidence after losing the support of the military, who had backed him up secretly when he became prime minister.
Since his ouster, Mr. Khan has multiplied the maneuvers to obtain the holding of early elections before the deadline of October, in a country in the grip of a serious economic crisis.
He also launched into increasingly virulent diatribes against his successor, Shehbaz Sharif, and the military establishment.
The military wields considerable political influence in Pakistan. It has staged at least three coups since independence in 1947 and held power for more than three decades.
But direct criticism against him is rare, because it is considered a red line not to be crossed, at the risk of finding himself in the sights of the security apparatus.
Imran Khan’s arrest came shortly after he renewed charges over the weekend against a senior military officer he blames for plotting to assassinate him at a rally in November election where he had been shot in the leg.
He did not provide the slightest proof of his allegations, which were denounced as “fabricated and malicious” by the army.