UN says Pakistan must free ex-prime minister Khan now

A PANEL of UN experts has determined that the detention of former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan was arbitrary and a violation of international law, calling for him to be released “immediately”.

In an opinion published on Monday (1), the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention raised concerns about multiple cases brought against Khan since he was ousted in April 2022. It found that his deprivation of liberty was “arbitrary” and violated several international laws and norms. Khan’s “detention had no legal basis and appears to have been intended to disqualify him from running for political office,” the working group said.

“Thus, from the outset, that prosecution was not grounded in law and was reportedly instrumentalised for a political purpose,” it said in the opinion, which was dated March 25 and made public on Monday.

The working group, made up of five independent experts whose opinions are not binding but carry reputational weight, called on Pakistan’s government to “take the steps necessary to remedy the situation”. “The appropriate remedy would be to release Khan immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law,” it added.

The experts also called on Pakistan’s government to ensure “a full and independent investigation of the circumstances surrounding the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of Khan, and to take appropriate measures against those responsible for the violation of his rights”.

Neither Pakistan’s interior nor information ministry immediately responded to requests for comment.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party hailed the ruling as “a huge victory”. “It has shown without any one percent of doubt that Imran Khan is innocent and has been thrown into prison illegally,” PTI spokesman Syad Zulfiqar Bukhari said in a statement. Khan, who served as prime minister from 2018 to 2022, has been entangled in more than 200 legal cases since he was ousted, in what he says is a campaign to keep him from power.

Now 71, he has been detained since August last year and barred from standing for office.

Last month, Khan had a 10-year sentence for treason overturned. He had been cleared for release before that trio of sentences in the days running up to Pakistan’s general elections in February. But Khan remains in the Adiala jail, south of Islamabad, over an illegal marriage conviction.

He and his wife, Bushra Bibi, were both sentenced to seven years in jail in February on charges that, under Islamic law, their marriage came too soon after Bibi’s divorce. Last week, an Islamabad court deferred a plea to suspend those sentences, saying a decision would be announced on July 12.