PTI founder Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi have approached the Supreme Court of Pakistan seeking suspension of their sentences in the £190 million Al-Qadir Trust case, challenging the Islamabad High Court’s refusal to grant them relief pending appeal (The News; Geo.tv). The Supreme Court has not yet announced a date for hearing the petitions.
The Al-Qadir Trust case — one of several criminal cases against Imran Khan — involves allegations that Imran and others adjusted Rs50 billion (£190 million at the relevant exchange rate) that Britain’s National Crime Agency returned to the Pakistani government during Imran’s tenure as prime minister. An accountability court sentenced Imran to 14 years’ imprisonment and levied a Rs1 million fine; Bushra Bibi received a seven-year sentence and a Rs500,000 fine. Both have consistently denied the charges.
The petitions argue that the IHC erred in rejecting the sentence suspension applications without conducting a preliminary review of the evidence, and that the court overlooked key arguments raised on maintainability. The petitioners separately cite deteriorating health conditions: Imran has reportedly lost approximately 85 percent of the vision in his right eye, while Bushra underwent eye surgery during her imprisonment without her family or legal counsel being informed of the procedure.
Legal backdrop
Imran Khan has been held in Adiala Jail since August 2023 and has faced convictions in multiple cases, several of which have been suspended or overturned on appeal. His legal team has run parallel tracks across civil, criminal, and constitutional courts, with the result that different cases are at different stages simultaneously. The Supreme Court hearing, once scheduled, will be a significant procedural development — a decision to suspend the sentence pending appeal would alter his conditions of imprisonment substantially, while a rejection would exhaust a major avenue for near-term relief (Pakistan Times; Pakistan Observer).
All allegations in the case remain subject to ongoing judicial proceedings.
