Pakistan

Islamabad High Court Orders One-Hour Lawyer Meetings for Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi as Counsel Warns of Brain Haemorrhage Risk

Abdul Mannan 59 minutes ago • 30 min read

Former prime minister Imran Khan in a June 2023 file photo. — File photo of former prime minister Imran Khan, June 2023. Photo: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).

The Islamabad High Court has ordered that lawyers be allowed to meet Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, for one hour at Adiala Jail, in a hearing that put the former prime minister’s health and his access to legal counsel at the centre of one of Pakistan’s most consequential corruption appeals. The order came on Tuesday, 10 November, hours before Khan’s counsel warned outside the court that the 74-year-old could suffer a brain haemorrhage or a heart attack if he did not receive hospital treatment.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar and Justice Muhammad Asif issued the direction while hearing the appeals filed by Khan and Bushra Bibi against their convictions in the £190 million case, also known as the Al-Qadir Trust case, according to the Islamabad Post and the DNA News Agency. The court adjourned the appeals for ten days and directed that arguments begin at the next hearing, once the lawyers have had the chance to take proper instructions from their clients.

The hearing was the first real movement in the appeals since Khan’s lawyer, Barrister Salman Safdar, was finally allowed to meet him at Adiala Jail on 2 November, after a gap of seven months. Safdar met Bushra Bibi on the same day after eleven months without a meeting. Both encounters, the defence says, were too short to cover the cases and the couple’s health. Tuesday’s order is meant to fix that, at least in part.

Outside the court, Safdar gave a stark account of his client’s condition. He said Khan had told him that his blood pressure had reached 160, 170, 190 and 192 at different times, and that it had been 192 the previous day. According to Safdar, the doctors examining Khan were themselves concerned about his uncontrolled blood pressure, and Khan feared that failure to control it could lead to serious heart and brain complications. Safdar said he had asked the court to transfer both Khan and Bushra Bibi to a hospital and to constitute an independent medical board for their treatment.

The claims about Khan’s blood pressure have not been independently verified, and no medical report has been published by either side. The government has not published its own medical account either. That absence of verifiable medical evidence, set against a week of escalating claims and counter-claims, is itself the heart of the story. What is established is that a court has now intervened to guarantee the defence access to its clients, and that the appeals, which have waited months for a hearing, are finally scheduled to be argued.

What the court ordered

The Islamabad High Court’s division bench heard the appeals on Tuesday after they were fixed for 10 November, the first listing that promised substantive progress since the convictions were challenged. An accountability court in Islamabad had sentenced Khan to 14 years’ imprisonment with a fine of Rs1 million, and Bushra Bibi to seven years’ imprisonment with a fine of Rs500,000, on 17 January 2025. Both appealed, and the appeals have been pending before the high court since then.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Sardar Latif Khosa, who represents Bushra Bibi, told the court that he had repeatedly sought a meeting with Khan but had not been allowed one, according to the Islamabad Post. Khosa asked for at least an hour with his clients. The chief justice directed the Islamabad advocate general to arrange the meeting, and the attorney general told the court that the meetings could be arranged if the defence assured the court that arguments in the appeals would begin at the next hearing, the DNA News Agency reported.

Safdar also asked for a further meeting, telling the bench that his previous meeting with Khan had given him instructions but had been insufficient. The court allowed both lawyers to meet their clients for one hour so that consultations on the legal matters could be completed before arguments begin, and it directed that the paper books in the cases be prepared beforehand. The chief justice granted time for preparation and urged Khosa to begin arguments in the £190 million case at the next hearing, when the matter returns in ten days.

Shafaqna Pakistan, citing Geo News, reported the same sequence: the bench directed that Khosa and Safdar be allowed to meet Khan and Bushra Bibi in Adiala Jail, and the case was adjourned for ten days with arguments to begin at the next hearing. The consistency of the accounts across the Islamabad Post, DNA News Agency, Shafaqna Pakistan and the Islamabad Today newspaper gives the core of the order a solid footing: one-hour meetings, ten-day adjournment, arguments next time.

The court also made clear where the health questions belong. The chief justice observed that matters relating to health and meetings were already pending before the Supreme Court and the Federal Constitutional Court, and directed the advocate general to make the formal arrangements for the meetings. Safdar told the court that the defence had not yet been provided with the documents needed to prepare for arguments, a point the bench addressed by ordering the paper books to be readied before the next date.

There was one clarification that matters for the record. The chief justice noted that an earlier order had been for Safdar to meet Khan, not Khosa, and that the new direction covers both lawyers. The distinction is small, but it shows a bench that is paying attention to the paper trail of its own orders, after months in which the defence says access was granted on paper and denied in practice.

The warning from outside the court

Safdar’s remarks to the media outside the court were the most alarming made by anyone in the defence team since the health row began. Speaking to reporters, he warned that Khan could suffer a brain haemorrhage or a heart attack if he did not receive treatment, according to Pakistan Point, which published his remarks on Tuesday evening.

Safdar said he had requested the court to transfer Khan and Bushra Bibi to a hospital and to constitute an independent medical board for their treatment. He said Khan had strongly stressed that a major cause of his deteriorating health was his concern over his wife’s condition. Bushra Bibi’s eye condition was continuously worsening, Safdar said, affecting her vision and significantly increasing her stress and anxiety. Providing her with proper treatment and medical facilities could also improve Khan’s condition, he added, and until he received relief and his wife was given the treatment to which she was entitled, even medicines would not prove effective.

The lawyer said Khan had first briefed him about his health and circumstances, and had expressed concern about his blood pressure, stating three times that it had reached 160, 170, 190 and 192 at different times. His blood pressure had also been 192 the previous day, Safdar said. According to Safdar, the doctors examining Khan were also concerned about his uncontrolled blood pressure, and Khan feared that failure to control it could lead to serious heart and brain complications.

Safdar also described the legal position. He said he had filed bail applications before the High Court and the Federal Constitutional Court, but that both courts had refused to hear the applications on their merits on medical grounds. He said he had assured his clients that he would present their concerns before the division bench at the next hearing and seek appropriate court orders for their treatment and transfer. He added that the time allowed for the last meeting had been completely insufficient, because there were numerous issues and matters to discuss, and that they had told the court the meeting was insufficient because instructions could not be obtained in a short sitting when there were so many cases and health issues to cover.

There was also a shift in the legal strategy, and Safdar made it plain. He said Khan and Bushra Bibi had both clearly instructed him to pursue and advance the appeal in the Al-Qadir Trust case, and that these instructions had not previously been given, because their directions had earlier been limited to bail matters. Khan’s instruction, Safdar said, was that whether relief was granted or not was a separate matter, but that the cases should be pursued in the same manner as before, through arguments in court, highlighting their flaws and exposing them. He referred to the Toshakhana case, the cipher case, the iddat marriage case and the bail applications in the 9 May cases, saying that after those proceedings the prosecution had not been able to bring the matters to their logical conclusion.

Safdar said all of these cases would be presented before the bench at the next date with complete preparation, and that the court would be informed of all legal options so the cases could be taken forward. He said Khan had clearly instructed him to assist the court fully prepared and to make every possible effort to secure justice. Khan had particularly stressed, Safdar added, that every possible legal relief should be secured for Bushra Bibi, even if a fresh application had to be filed, because the law did not bar an entitled person from filing a bail application five or ten times.

He closed with a point about professional duty. The court had assured them, he said, that Khosa and he would meet the couple again, during which they would repeat their instructions. They were professional lawyers, he added, and anything communicated by a client was confidential. His first duty was to convey that information to the court, and every word recorded in his affidavit had come from his clients.

The number at the centre of the row

The figure of 192 has dominated the argument about Khan’s health for a week, and it deserves to be handled with care, because its history shows how a single number can travel faster than the evidence behind it. The number first entered public discussion on 3 November, when Khan’s sister Rubina Khan said in a statement shared by his son Kasim Khan that the former prime minister had conveyed that his blood pressure had suddenly risen to 192, raising concerns about his safety in prison. She demanded that he be admitted immediately to an independent medical facility in the presence of his personal doctor, according to The News, as reported by the Islamabad Post.

What followed was confusion rather than clarity. On 5 November, Safdar himself said he was not the source of the alarming health reports, and described his role as limited to legal duties. Multiple people familiar with the 2 November meeting told reporters that Khan had mentioned a reading near 190 but had looked generally fit, leaving a disputed picture of how serious the episode was. The reporting at the time was careful to say that the figure had not been independently verified, and that no published medical report supported it.

Tuesday’s statement changes Safdar’s position. Where he had previously distanced himself from the reports, he now relays the figures as Khan’s own account, given to him directly, and says the doctors examining Khan share the concern. That is a significant development, but it does not settle the medical question. A lawyer relaying what his client told him is not the same as a published medical record, and the distinction matters. The government has not published its own medical account of the reported incident, and no verified medical statement has been published by either side.

There is also a counterpoint on the record that should not be dropped. In August, after Khan was taken to the state-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences for examination instead of the private hospital the Supreme Court had named, his sister Dr Uzma Khan, who is herself a doctor, checked his blood pressure and said he was completely healthy and fit at 120 over 80. That reading, like the 192 figure, comes from a family member rather than a published report, and it points in the opposite direction. The two accounts cannot both describe the same moment, and neither has been tested against a document the public can see.

The honest position, on the evidence available, is this: Khan’s lawyer says his client told him his blood pressure reached 192 and that the doctors examining him are concerned; the party and the family say the same; the government has published nothing; and no independent medical report has been made public. Readers should treat the figure as a claim by the party and the family, relayed by counsel, not as a confirmed medical finding. That is not a judgement on whether it is true. It is a statement about what has been proved, and in a story where health is also politics, the difference between a claim and a finding is the whole of the story.

The £190 million case: how we got here

The appeals now before the Islamabad High Court arise from a case that has followed Khan since his time in office. The £190 million case, also known as the Al-Qadir Trust case, involves allegations that Khan and others in 2019 adjusted Rs50 billion, amounting to £190 million at the time, that had been sent by Britain’s National Crime Agency to the Pakistani government during his tenure as prime minister.

The National Accountability Bureau alleged that Khan and Bushra Bibi obtained billions of rupees and land worth hundreds of kanals from a real estate firm in exchange for legalising the money, according to the reporting of the case. The money was linked to property tycoon Malik Riaz. The case turned on the Al-Qadir Trust, a trust set up during Khan’s government, and on the question of whether the settlement of the returned funds was handled lawfully or was used to benefit the couple.

On 17 January 2025, an accountability court in Islamabad sentenced Khan to 14 years’ imprisonment with a fine of Rs1 million, and Bushra Bibi to seven years’ imprisonment with a fine of Rs500,000. Both challenged their convictions before the Islamabad High Court, and the appeals have been pending since then, with repeated adjournments and, according to the defence, long periods in which the lawyers could not even meet their clients to take instructions.

The case sits alongside a long list of other proceedings against Khan, and Safdar’s remarks on Tuesday were a reminder of how many there are. He named the Toshakhana case, the cipher case, the iddat marriage case and the bail applications in the 9 May cases, and said the defence would bring all of them before the bench at the next date with complete preparation. The point he was making was procedural rather than rhetorical: a defence cannot argue an appeal without instructions, and instructions cannot be taken without access.

Khan has been in prison since August 2023, following convictions in several criminal cases that he and his party have disputed and described as politically motivated. Bushra Bibi was arrested on 17 January 2025, the same day the couple were sentenced in the £190 million case. The length of the imprisonment, and the number of cases, are part of why the health question carries such weight. A prisoner held for more than three years, facing multiple proceedings, with restricted access to family and lawyers, is a prisoner whose health becomes a matter of public concern whether or not the state wishes it to be.

The Supreme Court’s August order, and what happened next

The health dispute has already been before the Supreme Court, and the court has already given an order that, by the family’s account, has not been carried out. On 18 August 2026, a three-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Shahid Waheed ordered that Khan be transferred to Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad for medical examination and treatment. The court also directed the formation of a medical board, including a physician, a general surgeon, an internal medicine specialist, an ophthalmologist and a cardiologist, and permitted Khan’s personal physician, Dr Faisal Sultan, and his sister, Dr Uzma Khan, to take part in his medical examination and treatment.

The order was interim. The court said the directions were interim measures and that the question of the maintainability of the petitions and other objections would be considered in later proceedings. But the direction was specific: transfer within two days, to a named hospital, under a named board, with named people allowed to be present. The government subsequently challenged the order, arguing that treatment in a private hospital raised questions concerning prison rules and the treatment of other prisoners, and said it would seek modifications to the Supreme Court’s directions. Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar said the government preferred that treatment be provided through a government hospital, while allowing medical supervision.

What happened instead was a visit to the state-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences. Khan was taken there for examination in August and returned to his cell. It was after that visit that his sister said his blood pressure was 120 over 80 and that he was completely healthy and fit. The family and the party regard the PIMS visit as a substitute for the order, not as compliance with it, and they have pressed ever since for enforcement of the 18 August directions.

During the Supreme Court proceedings, Justice Shahid Waheed asked why there was an issue with providing Khan’s complete medical record, and observed that medical reports indicated that his vital organs had started to be affected, according to TNN English’s report of the hearing. The judge also said that Khan’s pulse and heart condition were not normal, and asked about a reference to angiography in the medical report and whether angiography could be performed in jail. The court sought from the Adiala Jail authorities the record of meetings held with Khan during the past three years and asked why the Islamabad High Court’s order had been violated. It directed that Khan’s complete medical record be submitted to the court before the next hearing.

The Supreme Court also ordered weekly meetings between Khan and his family, and on 19 August his sister Noreen Niazi met him at Adiala Jail after a gap of around nine months, according to the Express Tribune, as reported by the news agency ANI. The meeting lasted approximately 15 minutes. Noreen briefed Khan about the Supreme Court’s order regarding his transfer to Shifa Hospital, enquired about his health and discussed some ongoing legal matters with him. Khan also met Bushra Bibi on the same day, with their meeting lasting around 30 to 35 minutes.

The medical board report and a report by the Adiala Jail superintendent, submitted to the Supreme Court, had recommended more frequent meetings between Khan and his immediate family and spouse to help manage his blood pressure and anxiety, highlighting concerns over the former premier’s blood pressure. The court allowed the meetings on the condition that PTI representatives refrain from political activity or media engagement after seeing Khan, a condition the party said it would follow.

None of this has produced a published medical report. The Supreme Court asked for the complete record. The family says the transfer order has not been carried out. The government says it prefers a government hospital. And the argument has now moved, in part, to the Islamabad High Court, where the question is not only medical but procedural: whether the defence can get the access it needs to argue the appeals at all.

A week of claim and counter-claim

The events of the past week explain why Tuesday’s hearing mattered as much as it did, and why the court’s order was greeted by the defence as a breakthrough. The sequence began on Monday, 2 November, when Safdar met Khan at Adiala Jail for the first time in seven months, and met Bushra Bibi after eleven months. The meeting lasted around 40 minutes, according to reports, and Safdar said afterwards that the time had been completely insufficient, because there were numerous issues and matters to discuss. PTI chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan said the meeting was the first between Khan and his lawyer since April.

The next day, the number appeared. Rubina Khan’s statement, shared by Kasim Khan, said Khan had conveyed that his blood pressure had suddenly risen to 192, and demanded his immediate admission to an independent medical facility in the presence of his personal doctor. The claim set off a fresh row, and the party demanded his immediate transfer to Shifa International Hospital for treatment by his personal doctors.

On Wednesday, 4 November, PTI secretary general Salman Akram Raja repeated the figure and the demand. But the accounts of the 2 November meeting differed sharply. Safdar said he was not the source of the alarming health reports and described his role as limited to legal duties. Multiple people familiar with the meeting said Khan had mentioned a reading near 190 but had looked generally fit. The government published no medical account of its own. The reporting, including by NationWire and Zark News, was careful to say that the reading had not been independently verified and that the figure should be treated as a claim by the party and the family, not as a confirmed medical finding.

On Friday, 6 November, Gohar said the reports about Khan’s health were not encouraging and that the entire nation was worried. Speaking to reporters outside Parliament House in Islamabad, he said there should be no compromise on Khan’s medical treatment, and that the party had approached the Supreme Court seeking implementation of its 18 August order. An application had been submitted requesting the apex court to fix the matter for an early hearing. PTI senator Mashal Yousafzai approached the court because neither the Supreme Court nor the Federal Constitutional Court had listed the case for hearing, according to the Express Tribune, as reported by Khabr.pk.

Yousafzai’s application said Khan remained in solitary confinement with severely restricted access to his family and lawyers, and that his health was deteriorating. It said the failure to provide the medical care and facilities already directed by the Supreme Court had given rise to serious concerns about his physical and mental well-being, and that any further delay might have serious consequences for his health. The application recalled that the Supreme Court had resumed hearing the matter on 16 September and had raised questions about the Federal Constitutional Court’s order summoning the case record. Attorney General Mansoor Awan had sought three weeks to examine the questions, and the court had granted the request, but the three weeks expired without the case being fixed for further hearing.

On Monday, 9 November, a team from the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences examined Khan and Bushra Bibi at Adiala Jail. The team, led by Dr Arif, checked vital signs including blood pressure, temperature and pulse, reviewed medication for both and gave health care instructions, assisted by jail hospital staff, over about two hours. No findings were disclosed. The Pakistan Daily, citing ARY News, noted that the silence was itself the story: an examination that produces no published outcome does not settle the question it was presumably meant to address.

Tuesday’s hearing, and Safdar’s remarks afterwards, are the latest turn in that sequence. The lawyer who had distanced himself from the health reports a week ago now relays the blood pressure figures as his client’s own account. The court that had been asked to fix the appeals has now ordered the meetings that make argument possible. And the medical examination that produced no findings has been followed, a day later, by a warning of brain haemorrhage and heart attack. Each step has raised the stakes of the next, and none has yet produced the one thing that would settle the argument: a medical report that the public can read.

Bushra Bibi’s health and the operation on 15 November

Bushra Bibi’s health has been the quieter half of the story, and Tuesday brought it into the open. According to Express News court correspondent Fayyaz Mehmood, Safdar told the bench that Bushra Bibi had a severe eye ailment and that an operation was scheduled for 15 November. The court reporting described the defence detailing her eye condition ahead of the operation, and the bench taking note of it as part of the case.

Safdar’s remarks outside the court filled in the human detail. He said Bushra Bibi’s eye condition was continuously worsening, affecting her vision and significantly increasing her stress and anxiety. He said Khan had strongly stressed that a major cause of his own deteriorating health was his concern over his wife’s condition, and that providing her with proper treatment and medical facilities could also improve Khan’s condition. Until he received relief and his wife was given the treatment to which she was entitled, Safdar said, even medicines would not prove effective.

In court, Safdar made a legal point about her position as well. He said women were entitled to concessions in such matters and asked the court to obtain complete medical reports from Adiala Jail. He also said Khan had particularly stressed that every possible legal relief should be secured for Bushra Bibi, even if a fresh application had to be filed. The couple’s instructions, he said, were that the appeals should be pursued and advanced, and that the defence should assist the court fully prepared and make every possible effort to secure justice.

The 15 November operation gives the story a hard date. If the surgery goes ahead as scheduled, it will be a test of whether the medical arrangements the defence has been demanding are in place. If it is delayed, or if it takes place without the independent supervision the family has sought, it will become a further point of contention. Either way, the next ten days, which are also the ten days of the court’s adjournment, will decide more than the timetable of the appeals. They will decide whether the medical questions that have been argued in public for a week are answered in a hospital, or argued again in a courtroom.

In the wider picture

The hearing took place against a wider set of political developments, and two of them are worth noting because they frame the context in which the case is being argued. The first concerns Pakistan’s relationship with the United States. President Donald Trump has nominated Natalie Baker, the career diplomat currently running the United States embassy in Islamabad, as the next American ambassador to Pakistan, according to Geo News and the Indian press, nearly two years after the last envoy left. Baker, who has served as chargé d’affaires, would be the first ambassador in the post for almost two years if confirmed, and her nomination comes at a moment when Islamabad has been pressing Washington on trade, security and the regional fallout from the war with Iran.

The second concerns the domestic political temperature. PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Tuesday that there was no time to manipulate the system for the business elite of Islamabad or Lahore, and that the prime minister should first restore his allies’ confidence and avoid new disputes with opposition parties. If the system is to be reset, he said, the country should run on the wishes of poor people, and then the economy will grow. The remarks, reported by Pakistan Point, were a reminder that the government’s own allies are pressing it to stop fighting on every front at once, and to concentrate on the economic hardship facing ordinary people.

Neither development decides the £190 million appeals. But both describe the environment in which they are being heard: a government managing a security crisis in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a regional war that has drawn in Pakistan’s neighbours, an economy under strain, and an opposition whose leader is in prison and whose health has become a national argument. The court’s order on Tuesday was narrow, a direction about meetings and a timetable for arguments. Its significance lies in the fact that, in that environment, a court has insisted on the ordinary machinery of a fair hearing: lawyers meeting clients, paper books prepared, arguments heard.

Analysis: Why It Matters

Access to counsel is the case now

The most important thing the Islamabad High Court did on Tuesday was not medical. It was procedural, and that is precisely why it matters. An appeal cannot be argued without instructions, and instructions cannot be taken without access. For months, according to the defence, the lawyers could not meet their clients, and the appeals could not move. The court has now tied the two together: the meetings are ordered so that arguments can begin, and arguments are to begin at the next hearing because the meetings have been ordered. That is a court insisting on the ordinary machinery of a fair hearing, and it is the foundation on which everything else in the case will now rest. If the meetings happen as ordered, the appeals will be argued on their merits for the first time since the convictions. If they do not, the court will have to decide what to do about its own order, and the question of access will become a question about the authority of the court itself.

A medical dispute with no medical evidence

The second point is about evidence, and it is uncomfortable for everyone involved. The party says Khan’s blood pressure reached 192. The family says the same. The lawyer now relays the figures as his client’s account. The government has published nothing. The hospital examination on 9 November produced no disclosed findings. The Supreme Court asked for the complete medical record, and it has not been made public. The result is a national argument conducted entirely on the basis of claims, with no document that an independent reader can check. That is a failure of transparency, and it is a failure that serves no one. If Khan is seriously ill, a published report would compel action. If he is not, a published report would end the speculation. The absence of a report allows both sides to assert what suits them, and it leaves the public to choose between competing accounts of a man’s health on the basis of trust rather than evidence. In a case as charged as this one, that is a dangerous way to proceed, and the longer it goes on, the harder it will be to restore confidence in whatever is eventually said.

Two courts, two tracks, one prisoner

The third point is structural. The health question and the conviction appeals are now running on separate tracks in separate courts, and the gap between them is part of the problem. The Islamabad High Court is dealing with the appeals against conviction. The Supreme Court and the Federal Constitutional Court are dealing with the treatment and the meetings. The Supreme Court ordered a transfer to Shifa International Hospital on 18 August, and that order has not been carried out nearly three months later. The Islamabad High Court has now ordered meetings and a timetable for arguments, and the defence says it has not yet been given the documents it needs to prepare. Each court is doing its job, but no single forum is in a position to bring the medical question and the legal question together. That is how a prisoner can be the subject of two orders, one medical and one procedural, and still be waiting for both to be implemented. The next ten days will test whether the two tracks can be made to meet, or whether they will continue to run past each other.

The political temperature

The fourth point is political, and it should be stated plainly. Khan’s health has become a political fact, whether or not it is a medical fact, because his party has made it one and because the state has not answered it with evidence. The PTI has used the health question to keep its founder at the centre of the national conversation, to press the courts for access, and to frame the imprisonment as a matter of life and death rather than of law. The government, by contrast, has said little, published nothing, and preferred a government hospital to the private one the Supreme Court named. That silence may be a matter of legal caution, or of a reluctance to be drawn into a debate it cannot win. But silence in the face of a claim of 192 is itself a statement, and it is one that the party has been able to use. The health of a former prime minister in prison is always political, in every country, and the only way to take the politics out of it is to publish the medicine. Until that happens, the argument will continue to be conducted in the language of accusation rather than of evidence, and the temperature will continue to rise.

What the next ten days decide

The fifth point is about what happens next, and it is the most concrete. The adjournment runs for ten days. Inside that period, the lawyers are to meet their clients for an hour, the paper books are to be prepared, and Bushra Bibi is to undergo an eye operation on 15 November. At the next hearing, arguments on the appeals are to begin. That is a full programme, and it is a programme that will test every part of the system: the jail authorities who must arrange the meetings, the court staff who must prepare the paper books, the hospital that must carry out the operation, and the lawyers who must be ready to argue. If all of it happens, the £190 million appeals will finally be heard on their merits, and the case will move from argument about access to argument about the law. If any part of it fails, the failure will be visible, and it will be the subject of the next round of claims. The ten days are therefore not a pause. They are a test, and the result will be known by the time the court sits again.

What to Watch Next

The one-hour meetings at Adiala Jail, and whether they take place as ordered, with both Safdar and Khosa given the full hour with Khan and Bushra Bibi.
The preparation of the paper books for the appeals, and whether the defence receives the documents it says it has not yet been given.
Bushra Bibi’s eye operation on 15 November, and whether it goes ahead as scheduled, with what medical supervision.
Whether any medical report is published, by the government, the jail authorities or the PIMS team that examined the couple on 9 November, and what it says about Khan’s blood pressure.
The Supreme Court and Federal Constitutional Court proceedings on the 18 August transfer order, and whether the matter is listed for hearing after the three-week period sought by the attorney general expired without a listing.
The start of arguments on the £190 million appeals at the next Islamabad High Court hearing in ten days, and whether the defence opens with the Al-Qadir Trust appeal as instructed.
Whether the United States Senate moves on Natalie Baker’s nomination as ambassador to Pakistan, and what it signals for the relationship between Islamabad and Washington.

Sources