Pakistan Supreme Court orders ex-PM Khan moved from jail to hospital

Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered on Tuesday that jailed former prime minister Imran Khan be moved to hospital for medical checks, after a petition by his lawyers over claims of poor health.

Justice Shahid Waheed said Khan, who has been in jail since 2023 on corruption charges, will be shifted in the next two days to Shifa International hospital in the capital Islamabad.

Khan and his wife and spiritual guide Bushra Bibi were both sentenced late last year to 17 years behind bars.

Sardar Masroof Khan, a member of the legal team for the 73-year-old's political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), told AFP his family would be allowed to meet with him once a week.

The court said Uzma Khan, his sister and a medical doctor, "will be with him during his treatment", the lawyer added.

There was no immediate information about the details of Khan's health concerns included in his lawyers' petition.

He received eye treatment at a hospital this year, with his family and lawyer saying at the time that he had lost most of the vision in his right eye.

Secretary general Salman Akram Raja of Khan's PTI told media outside the court, in a video shared on Facebook, that Tuesday's ruling was "a major step, a major decision, a great blessing".

He called on the supporters of the ex-cricket captain -- who remains Pakistan's dominant political personality -- to abide by his party's agreement with the court that there "must not be any crowding or commotion".

Khan was prime minister from 2018 to 2022 before being removed in a no-confidence vote during a political crisis over tensions between his government and the South Asian country's powerful military establishment.

He has since faced multiple legal cases on corruption and other charges, which Khan and the PTI maintain are politically motivated.

His arrest triggered nationwide protests in May 2023, some of which turned violent and led to hundreds of arrests.

Khan was voted in by millions of Pakistanis who grew up watching him play cricket, where he excelled as an all-rounder and led the nation to a World Cup victory in 1992.

He ended decades of political dominance by dynastic parties and envisioned a national welfare state modelled on the Islamic golden age of the seventh to 14th centuries, a flourishing period in the Muslim world.

But his PTI party made little headway improving Pakistan's finances, with galloping inflation, crippling debt and a feeble rupee undermining economic reform.