ISLAMABAD: A district and sessions court in Islamabad has given senior politician Sheikh Rashid temporary bail in connection with their claims that he encouraged people to set fires after former prime minister Imran Khan was arrested on May 9 in a corruption case.
When Sheikh Rashid went to see Additional District and Sessions Judge Tahir Abbas Sapra, the judge asked about his health. The senior lawmaker gave a funny answer about how hard it was to get temporary bail because banks were closed on the weekends.
Rashid’s lawyer said that his client’s name was missed from the main challan and that he wasn’t the main suspect in what happened on May 9. Police raided Sheikh Rashid’s home and took his cars, even though they were not on the secondary challan.
After hearing these points, the judge released Rashid on bail and told the police they couldn’t arrest him until November 25.
The court also told the head of AML, who used to be a federal minister in Imran Khan’s government, to put up a Rs5,000 surety bond before the hearing was over.
Sheikh Rashid told the media outside of court that this was his 20th bail in cases filed at Islamabad’s Kohsar police station. There are still 66 cases that are being worked on.
He talked about how important it is to keep good relationships with state institutions and joked that, at 73 years old, he has 86 cases to handle. He thanked the judge for letting him out on bail “at an affordable cost.”
