Ex-PM Khan freed on bail for fortnight

Acourt in Islamabad has granted former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan a two-week reprieve from arrest in a corruption case, granting him bail on the charges.

Babar Awan, the lawyer for Mr Khan, said the court made the decision yesterday, a day after the country’s supreme court asked it to make a ruling.

He said Mr Khan is now “a free man”, adding that the decision was just.

The ruling came after Mr Khan returned to court to hear whether he will be shielded from renewed arrest or taken back into custody – a decision that put the government and legions of Khan supporters on edge after days of violent confrontations.

However, Mr Khan did not immediately leave the courtroom after the initial decision as the judges proceeded to deliberate whether to grant him bail in several other corruption cases filed against him.

Under Pakistan’s legal system, a person granted bail would still have to face a trial.

A short while later, the court said Mr Khan could not be arrested for the time being in other pending corruption cases against him.

The government contends that Mr Khan’s release rewards and encourages mob violence.

After he was arrested on Tuesday, his supporters attacked military installations, burned vehicles and ambulances and looted general stores in various parts of the country.

The government responded with a crackdown, arresting nearly 3,000 people.

The violence left at least 10 supporters of Mr Khan dead.

Dozens of protesters and more than 200 police officers were injured.

The arrest on Tuesday was a startling and controversial move.

Agents from the National Accountability Bureau burst into the Islamabad high court where Mr Khan was attending a session on other charges – the same court where he appeared yesterday – and dragged him away, putting him into an armoured vehicle.

On Thursday, Pakistan’s supreme court ruled that arrest unlawful, but asked the Islamabad high court, a lower court, to reconsider its initial decision to uphold the arrest.

REPRIEVED: Celebrations in Lahore by supporters of Imran Khan, pictured below.