A Pakistani court granted bail Wednesday to former Prime Minister Imran Khan in a graft case, his lawyer said. But with a slew of other charges pending against him, the opposition leader is staying in prison.
Still, the order by a superior court in the capital, Islamabad, was a boost for Khan in the case in which he is accused, along with his wife, Bushra Bibi, of keeping and selling state gifts in violation of government rules when he was in power.
Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in parliament in 2022, has denied the charge.
The hearings in the trial on the graft charges started in July and are still ongoing.
Khan has so far been embroiled in over 150 cases and has been sentenced in several, including to three years, 10 years, 14 years and seven years to be served concurrently under Pakistani law.
His convictions were later overturned in appeals but he cannot be freed due to other, pending cases against him.
His lawyer, Salman Safdar said he remained confident Khan would be freed but experts say there are at least eight cases standing in the way of Khan's release on bail.
Khan, who has been held in a prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi for over a year, has maintained his innocence and has argued that the cases are an attempt to sideline him politically by keeping him out of the public area.
His Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI, has also been demanding his release. Khan’s supporters have called for a rally in Islamabad on Sunday to demand his release — despite a government ban on the gathering.
Pakistan’s laws allow government officials and politicians to keep gifts given to them by foreign dignitaries, but they must correctly declare the market value of those gifts and declare any money they earned after selling them.
Last month, Bibi was freed on bail in the same case but will have to appear in court for the hearings alongside her husband.
