Islamabad:

A Pakistani court on Monday allowed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s appeal against his corruption conviction and suspended his 14-year prison sentence, his lawyer said, providing relief to his embattled party. tone, the party won a majority of seats in February’s national polls.

Just a week before the February 8 elections, Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, were sentenced to 14 years in prison by an anti-corruption court on charges of illegally selling state gifts.

Despite his suspension, Khan will remain behind bars for a number of other sentences handed down to the former cricket star ahead of the vote, which also disqualifies him from holding any public office for a decade.

The Islamabad High Court said the corruption convictions against the couple will remain suspended until a final decision on the convictions is made after the Eid holidays when the main petition is argued and evidence processed, lawyer Ali Zafar said.

“There is no evidence to support this conviction,” he told reporters outside the Islamabad court, adding that was why the court stayed the verdict during the first appeal hearing.

Khan and his wife are accused of illegally selling gifts worth more than 140 million rupees ($500,000) that he received from the state treasury known locally as “Toshakhana” during his tenure as prime minister from 2018 to 2022.

The list of gifts shared by a former information minister included perfume, diamond jewellery, tableware and seven watches, including six Rolex watches, the most expensive being a “Graff Master Limited Edition” worth 85 million rupees ($304,000).

Khan was also sentenced to three years in prison by another court in August for the same charges, but the sentence was suspended on appeal.

Khan and his party say the legal proceedings against him are based on trumped-up charges and are intended to keep him away from politics at the behest of the country’s powerful military following a dispute with military generals. The military denies the accusation.

Since Pakistan gained independence from British rule in 1947, Pakistan has been directly ruled by the military for half of its history. In this country of 241 million people, the military plays an outsized role in creating or dismantling governments.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)