Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was on Sunday granted interim bail until 7 October by the Islamabad High Court, after a magistrate issued an arrest warrant against him for criticizing a female judge on Saturday evening.
According to Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party, the former PM was granted bail after his lawyer deposited a sum of 10,000 Pakistani rupees ($44).
The warrant for arrest against Khan was issued by a senior civil judge for not “following” the proceedings of the case filed against him because of Khan's criticism of the judiciary at a rally on 20 August, according to local media reports.
At the rally in Islamabad, Khan had called upon Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Zeba Chaudhry to “prepare herself as action would be taken against her” for allowing a remand of Khan’s close aide Shahbaz Gill. Gill has been charged with "inciting rebellion" in the Army after he told a local news channel in August that Pakistani troops shouldn't accept any "illegal order" from the military leadership, according to reports.
Khan has described the charges against Gill as “politically motivated”.
As news of the warrant spread, Khan’s supporters started congregating at his residence in Islamabad as well as in other parts of the country to express their solidarity with the former prime minister.
Speculation about Khan’s possible arrest also started doing the rounds, prompting Islamabad Police to issue a rebuttal that it hadn’t dispatched any official to arrest the former PM.
Pakistan’s interior minister Rana Sanaullah also appeared on the television last night, saying that Khan’s arrest warrant was “routine and bailable”.
“There is no question of arrest,” he said.
The warrant was issued a day after Khan made an personal appearance at the Islamabad sessions’ court to tender an apology to the female judge he had criticized in his public speech on 20 August.
30 September 2022, 10:48 GMT
However, the judge didn’t appear and a court official told Khan that she was “on leave”. The next hearing in the case has been scheduled for 3 October.
Khan was ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote by present prime minister Shehbaz Sharif in April. The former PM has claimed that the no-confidence motion was at the behest of Joe Biden's administration, which wasn't satisfied with Islamabad's "independent foreign policy" adopted under Khan. He has also described Sharif as a "stooge" in the "foreign conspiracy" which led to his being ousted from power.