Pakistan: Ex-PM Imran Khan gets transit bail till Thursday in terror case

Islamabad: Imran Khan on Monday secured transit bail for three days till Thursday after the former Pakistan prime minister filed a pre-arrest bail application in the Islamabad High Court to avoid arrest in a terror case filed against him last night.

A first information report (FIR) was registered against Khan under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) for threatening an additional sessions judge and senior police officers of the Islamabad Police at a rally in the federal capital’s F-9 Park on Saturday.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf lawyer Faisal Chaudhry and Babar Awan filed the plea for Khan, who maintained he is ready to appear before the court whenever summoned, GeoTV report said.

The plea stated that Imran Khan has no past criminal record and has never been convicted for any offence.

“There is no chance of fleeing or damaging evidence presented by the prosecution. Imran Khan is also ready to submit money as surety against his bail,” the plea stated.

However, the high court registrar’s office raised three objections that Khan did not undergo bio-metric verification before filing the plea; that he approached the high court instead of the relevant ATC court and that he didn’t provide a verified copy of the terror case.

But when Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani and Justice Babar Sattar heard the case, they granted Khan transit bail till August 25, overruling the registrar office's objections, and asked Khan to approach an anti-terrorism court (ATC) by Thursday — as it is the relevant forum in the case. (UNI)