ISLAMABAD (AP) – The legal team of Pakistan’s imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday appealed his recent convictions and sentences in three controversial legal cases, a defence lawyer said.
Khan was sentenced to a total of 31 years in prison on charges of corruption, revealing official secrets and marriage law violations in three separate verdicts in late January and early February during trials at a prison in Rawalpindi. The appeals in all three cases were filed on Friday, Khan’s lawyer Latif Khosa said.
Supporters of Khan said the prosecutions were politically motivated moves to make him ineligible to run in the country’s February 8 elections to choose a Parliament and ultimately to elect a new prime minister.
Despite Khan’s legal woes, candidates backed his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI), won the most seats. However, no party was able to get a simple majority in the vote to rule alone, though Khan’s rivals have announced they are forming a coalition government.
Khan was sentenced on January 30 to 10 years on the conviction of revealing official secrets. Within the next few days, he was sentenced to 14 years in a graft case and seven years on violation of a marriage law.
Khosa said the appeals of the convictions for corruption and revealing official secrets have been filed in the Islamabad High Court, while an appeal of the conviction of Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi on a charge of violation of a marriage law was filed in another court.
Meanwhile, Khan’s PTI and several other political parties rallied on Friday against alleged rigging of the February 8 vote, with thousands gathering near the southern city of Hyderabad.
