Imran Khan’s arrest warrants in judge threatening case suspended

• The Islamabad court suspended the arrest warrant till March 20.
• Directing Khan to appear before the concerned court.
• The PTI chief had “threatened” the judge in August last year.

Islamabad: The Islamabad court has suspended the non-bailable arrest warrant of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan till March 20 in the case of threatening a judge.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Faizan Geelani, while suspending the warrant, directed Khan – who was removed from the post of prime minister last April – to appear before the concerned court on a fixed date.

Senior Civil Judge Rana Mujahid Rahim had on March 13 issued a non-bailable arrest warrant for Khan for repeatedly failing to appear in court.

To avoid arrest, the former prime minister filed an application in a local court challenging the arrest warrant – but has not appeared in person despite repeated summonses.

Later, on March 14, Judge Gilani suspended the arrest warrant till March 16 – and today, he extended the relief.

During today’s hearing, when prosecutor Rizwan Abbasi appeared in court, he opposed the suspension of the arrest warrant while PTI’s counsel appealed for relief to the party chief and the judge followed suit.

Problem

There was a case. Registered A case was registered against the former prime minister under the Anti-Terrorism Act for threatening Additional Sessions Judge Zeba Chaudhry and senior officers of the Islamabad Police during a public rally in August last year.

After that, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) started contempt of court proceedings against the former prime minister.

Later, the High Court dropped the terrorism charges and granted amnesty to the PTI chief after acquitting him in a contempt of court case.

But a similar case filed against the PTI chief — after the First Information Report (FIR) was registered against him — is still pending in the sessions court.