The Islamabad High Court (IHC) will hear petitions filed by former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi seeking suspension of their sentences in the £190 million corruption case on March 11.
Khan and Bushra Bibi were sentenced in the £190 million corruption case by an accountability court on January 17, 2025 to 14 and seven years respectively.
The prosecution alleges that the couple obtained billions of rupees and land worth hundreds of kanals from Bahria Town Ltd in return for facilitating the legalisation of PKR 50 billion repatriated to Pakistan from the UK during the PTI government. Both the accused have repeatedly refuted the charges, and have challenged their convictions before the IHC later that month.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar and Justice Muhammad Azam Khan resumed proceedings on Thursday. The bench saw noticeable displeasure when lawyers affiliated with Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) stood up and approached the rostrum simultaneously.
Asking if the ex-premier was trying to influence the court, to which Imran Khan’s counsel, Barrister Salman Sardar, replied that no such attempt was being made.
Arguing for urgency, Sardar told the court that the matter had gained increasing traction in light of the PTI founder’s recent eye ailment. He also pointed out that Bushra Bibi, despite being a woman, was serving a seven-year sentence and that her petition for suspension of sentence had been fixed after a six-month interval.
“We request you to suspend the sentence. The last order was passed on November 9,” he said in his submission.
Justice Dogar observed that most miscellaneous civil applications seeking early hearing had become infructuous, but directed that office objections on the suspension petitions be overruled.
When Sardar requested that the matter be fixed next week, the chief justice instead instructed the registrar’s office to schedule both the suspension petitions and the main criminal appeals for March 11, before adjourning proceedings.
In a related development, IHC Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro removed office objections on separate petitions seeking suspension of sentences in the Toshakhana 2.0 case, and proceeded to direct the registrar’s office to number both the petitions and the appeals against conviction and to fix them for hearing in accordance with court policy.
On December 20, 2025, an Islamabad special court sentenced the couple to a combined 17 years in the Toshakhana case, which centred on the purchase of a Bulgari jewellery set gifted to Imran by the Saudi crown prince during an official visit in May 2021. Prosecutors alleged that the set was acquired at a substantially undervalued price.
The ex-premier, who has been incarcerated since August 5, 2023, is currently serving a 14-year sentence at Adiala Jail in the £190 million case, also known as the Al-Qadir Trust case, and is likely to face additional prison time following his conviction in the Toshakhana case in December 2025, with pending trials under the Anti-Terrorism Act linked to the May 9, 2023 unrest.
