Imran Khan's party issues warning as Pak govt officials indicate 'long' jail time for ex-PM

Islamabad: A senior government official on Wednesday indicated that former prime minister Imran Khan would be kept in jail "as long as possible", prompting his party to immediately warn against any “unjust attempts” to keep him incarcerated.

The comments by Advisor to Prime Minister on Political Affairs Rana Sanaullah, who is also a former interior minister, came while participating in a talk show on ARY News channel.

Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), in a WhatsApp message, shared the clip of the programme and a brief statement against Sanaullah’s remarks.

“Ruling party’s senior official and former interior minister of Pakistan, Rana Sanaullah hints at framing new charges against Imran Khan. Any more unjust attempts to keep him imprisoned will aggravate the supporters as they wait impatiently for bail granted in the Iddat case,” it read.

The Iddat case is the last one against Khan and if he receives bail, he may come out, but if the comments of the advisor are any indication, it may not be like that.

The ARY News anchor asked if Khan would come out of jail if given bail as he has not been arrested in any other case.

“A new case can be registered. If searched here and there, some new cases can come up. There should be an effort, and it will be, that the longer he (Khan) is kept as a guest (in jail) the better it will be,” Sanullah responded.

He, however, added: “We will keep him imprisoned as per the Constitution and law.”

Sanaullah belongs to the major party of the ruling coalition, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), which is an arch-rival of Khan’s PTI. The gap between the two parties had been widening since last year after the May 9 riots.

In the run-up to the February 8 elections, Khan had maintained that PML-N Supremo Nawaz Sharif was the favourite of the powerful military establishment, and post the polling day, has alleged that the PML-N had stolen his party’s mandate.

Sanaullah said that the PTI founding leader was in jail because he was sentenced by the courts.

He also said that Khan does not believe in dialogue and asked what should be done in such a case. “Imran Khan's narrative and political agenda is to destabilise the country,” Sanaullah said.

He said that there is no other way in democracy except dialogue to resolve different issues but Khan does not believe in democracy. “We are political and democratic people,” he said, adding if Khan has an intention to move forward with democracy then PML-N has no enmity with him.