Former prime minister Imran Khan faces a risk of a brain haemorrhage because his blood pressure remains uncontrolled in prison, his lawyer told the Islamabad High Court on Tuesday, as the court ordered that his legal team be allowed to meet him and his wife Bushra Bibi at Adiala Jail.
Barrister Salman Safdar, counsel for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder, told a division bench comprising Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar and Justice Muhammad Asif that Imran had said his blood pressure had risen above 190. He added that his client's eyesight had improved, but the uncontrolled blood pressure left him exposed to a serious medical risk.
The bench was hearing appeals filed by Imran and Bushra Bibi against their convictions in the £190 million case, also known as the Al-Qadir Trust case. The court directed the authorities to arrange a one-hour meeting between the couple and their lawyers, Sardar Latif Khosa and Salman Safdar, at Adiala Jail on Wednesday at 3pm, and adjourned the appeals for ten days, with arguments to begin at the next hearing.
Safdar told the court that he had been allowed to meet Imran on 3 November after seven months, and Bushra Bibi after eleven months, and that the brief meeting had not been enough to prepare the appeals. He said he needed a longer consultation with his clients before arguments could begin.
The lawyer also raised serious concerns about Bushra Bibi's health, telling the court that her eyesight was in a poor condition and that she was due to undergo another eye operation on 15 November. He asked the court to order a medical board to examine her, saying her treatment could not be carried out properly inside the jail, and argued that if bail could not be granted, she should at least be given bail for six weeks on medical grounds.
Chief Justice Dogar observed that matters concerning the health of the two prisoners were pending before the Federal Constitutional Court. Safdar maintained that no matter concerning Bushra Bibi was pending there, but the court proceeded to grant time for preparation and directed the Islamabad advocate general to arrange the jail meeting.
The health warning drew a swift response from the government. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Tariq Fazal Chaudhry defended the medical treatment being provided to Imran, insisting that the government had neither denied him care nor placed any deal on the table, and that the only route to his release was through the courts.
Chaudhry said that whenever the need arose in connection with Imran's blood pressure, a doctor was called from London and treatment was carried out to the standards he believed necessary. He also pointed out that the Supreme Court had ordered on 18 August that Imran be shifted to Islamabad's Shifa International Hospital within two days for medical examination and treatment.
The renewed concern follows an earlier disclosure after a meeting with his lawyer on 2 November, during which Imran said his blood pressure had surged to 192. A report prepared by Safdar in February, on the Supreme Court's direction, had earlier revealed that Imran told officials his right eye was functioning at only 15 per cent capacity, after which the court ordered that he be given access to his personal physicians inside Adiala Jail.
What happens next now turns on two tracks: the medical track, with the scheduled eye operation for Bushra Bibi and the continuing question of Imran's blood pressure, and the legal track, with the £190 million appeals set to resume in ten days. The court's order for a one-hour meeting on Wednesday gives the defence its first extended access to both clients in months, and the arguments that follow will show whether the health concerns change the pace of a case that has already kept the PTI founder behind bars through a series of convictions.
