A three-member Supreme Court (SC) bench will hear PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s plea against his arrest in the Al-Qadir Trust case at 2pm. The bench will comprise Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Athar Minallah. On Wednesday, an accountability court in Islamabad had handed Imran over to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for eight days in connection with the Al-Qadir Trust case. Subsequently, he had approached the apex court to set aside the warrants issued by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman on May 1 for his arrest and to challenge the Islamabad High Court’s decision to declare the arrest “unlawful”.

The appeal, which was filed on behalf of Imran through his counsel Raja Aamir Abbas, expressed apprehension about an imminent threat to the life and liberty of the petitioner. It argued that the warrants appeared to be in violation of Article 10-A (a provision that guarantees right to fair trial), as the proceedings initiated by NAB and Imran’s subsequent arrest were intended to deprive the political party and its leadership of participating in and carrying out election campaign.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-INP