ISLAMABAD: Lawyers of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan have moved a Pakistani high court to suspend his 17-year prison term in a graft case and release the ex-premier on grounds of his deteriorating health, Khan’s party said on Saturday.
The development follows a rare prison visit earlier this week by Barrister Salman Safdar, appointed as amicus curiae by the Supreme Court, to assess Khan’s health and living conditions at Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail. In his report, Safdar stated the ex-premier had suffered a significant loss of sight in his right eye.
The report sparked a protest by an alliance of opposition parties, the Tehreek-e-Tahafuz-e-Ayeen-e-Pakistan (TTAP), which also includes members of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, at Parliament House in Islamabad, with the protesters demanding Khan’s transfer from Adiala Jail to Al-Shifa Hospital for treatment.
The petition filed by Khan’s lawyers in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) seeks suspension of a Dec. 20, 2025 judgment by a special court involving illegal retention of state gifts, arguing that “continued incarceration of the Petitioner during pendency of the Appeal would result in grave miscarriage of justice.”
“The filing argues that the judgment is under substantive legal challenge and requests that the appellate court suspend the sentence until the appeal is decided, a remedy available under Pakistani law when serious questions are raised about the conviction,” Khan’s PTI party said in a statement on Saturday.
