Adviser to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs Rana Sanaullah on Friday expressed support for meetings between jailed PTI founder Imran Khan and his family members, subject to certain conditions.
Imran has been in prison since August 2023, serving a 14-year sentence on corruption charges. His family and party members have protested outside Adiala jail in recent days, demanding a meeting, but have been repeatedly denied despite court orders.
Imran’s sister Aleema Khan filed a contempt of court petition against the superintendent of Adiala Jail and others for not complying with an earlier ruling of the Islamabad High Court (IHC). order which reinstated a twice-weekly meeting schedule for the jailed former prime minister.
Speaking about the subject in an interview in Geographic news On the ‘Naya Pakistan’ programme, Sanaullah said: “There should be permission for meetings and they should definitely take place, but a 90-minute press conference cannot take place after an hour-long meeting; no law allows it.”
He also said that political debates could not take place at the meetings either, stating that no law allows a prisoner to direct, plan and guide movements outside of prison.
The senator maintained that family members were not allowed to hold press conferences outside the prison facilities and that an avalanche of messages against the State and officials appeared on social networks.
Sanaullah argued that the IHC’s order to facilitate the meetings was also dependent on conditions similar to those he laid out.
“They (Imran’s family and legal team) should sit with the jail authorities and resolve the issues,” he said, asserting that the meeting process should be carried out better without violations by any of the parties.
Sanaullah later said that the gatherings were not allowed because they were not held in accordance with the law. “The meeting must be in accordance with the law,” he maintained, reiterating that there should be no violation by any of the parties.
The contempt petition was filed after Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi along with several other PTI members organized a sitting overnight outside Adiala jail in Rawalpindi. The sit-in was organized when CM Afridi was denied a meeting with Imran for the eighth time on Thursday.
Earlier, Imran’s sisters, including Aleema, had also staged sit-ins outside Rawalpindi prison on multiple occasions after they were banned from meeting the former prime minister.
The PTI ended its latest sit-in on Friday morning, and the KP CM announced that they would approach the IHC, where Aleema filed the contempt plea.
