Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s preventive detention extended by two weeks

ISLAMABAD, Sept 13 (Reuters) – The remand of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is linked to charges of leak state secrets It was extended for two weeks on Wednesday, his lawyer said.

The 70-year-old former cricket star has been at the center of a political crisis since lost a vote of confidence in parliament in April 2022, and his conviction in a separate corruption case last month resulted in him being banned from national elections.

In late August, a higher court suspended Khan’s prison sentence for corruption just weeks after his imprisonment, but a previous remand order in the state secrets case prevented his release.

The latest extension of the remand order will keep Khan in prison until September 26, lawyer Naeem Panjutha said in a post on the X messaging platform.

In the state secrets case, Khan is accused of making public the contents of a confidential cable sent by Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States and using it for political gain, according to a Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) document seen by Reuters.

Khan alleges that the cable shows that the United States had pressured Pakistan’s military to orchestrate the fall of its government because it had visited Russia shortly before its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Washington and the Pakistani military have denied Khan’s allegations.

In the corruption case, Khan was sentenced to three years in prison for illegally selling state gifts during his tenure as prime minister from 2018 to 2022. As a result, the electoral commission forbidden He was prevented from participating in elections for five years, and although the prison sentence was suspended last month, the sentence still stands.

Chairman Arif Alvi of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party on Wednesday suggested in a letter to the Election Commission that it seek guidance from the judiciary on holding elections within 90 days of dissolving a government.

The elections should be held on November 6, he said, according to a statement from his office. The commission had previously announced that the election date was its decision and could be delayed by a few months due to the drawing of new electoral district boundaries as required by a new census.

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