Imran’s non-bailable warrants issued in judge threatening case

Announcing the reserved verdict, Judicial magistrate Malik Aman rejected the request filed by Imran's counsel seeking relief from court appearance and issued orders to ensure his presence in court on April 18.

The case against the former prime minister was registered on August 20 last year with Margalla police station in the federal capital over his remarks at a rally in F9 Park where he warned Additional District and Sessions Judge Zeba Chaudhry and police high-ups of dire consequences for what he called their “biased” attitude towards his party.

He alleged that Judge Zeba knew that incarcerated party leader Shahbaz Gill was tortured, but she did not release him on bail.

While the Islamabad High Court (IHC) had withdrawn its show cause notice to Imran and said it was satisfied with the apology and the PTI chairman's conduct, the matter is still pending at a lower court in the federal capital.

Earlier, during the hearing, prosecutor Raja Rizwan Abbasi had argued that the deposed premier must be ordered to appear before the court for the next hearing.

Imran’s lawyer, Ali Gohar, had argued that the PTI chief would appear before the court on March 30 for the Toshakhana case and requested that the court give the same date for the next hearing of this case.

He had asked the judge to uphold the warrant’s suspension and said that he would go to the civil courts and get the arrest deadline changed from March 29 to 30.

The judge had maintained that this was an “odd request” as the warrant provided the date of March 29, but the lawyer was insisting on March 30.

The prosecutor had questioned if the plea meant that the court could not “dare” to issue an arrest warrant, adding that arguments to suspend the warrant should be made on merit.

He had furthered that the accused was a “blue-eyed boy” of the courts, but even he was "not favoured that much".