ABBOTTABAD: District and Sessions Judge Ikhtiar Khan here on Wednesday granted bail-before-arrest to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani till Jan 26 on production of bail bonds with surety of two persons after he appeared in the court soon after returning to Pakistan from abroad.

Mr Ghani had stayed in Dubai and the UK for over seven months.

Mr Ghani, who was earlier granted transit bail by the Peshawar High Court till December 27, 2023, which was later extended to January 22 with the orders to the director general passports to facilitate him in renewing his passport.

Due to expiry of passport, Mr Ghani had claimed he couldn’t travel to Pakistan to appear before courts to face the cases and also to contest elections from PK-45 and NA-16.

He had filed his nomination papers through his elder brother having his special power of attorney. However, the returning officer had rejected his papers for both the seats. The papers’ rejection was challenged by his lawyer, Naz Elahi Mughal Advocate in the election tribunal, which allowed Mr Ghani to contest the election.

On Wednesday, Mushtaq Ghani, who is vice-president of PTI, landed at the Peshawar airport, where he was questioned by FIA and other agencies for at least two hours, and was then allowed to appear before the court in Abbottabad. He along with his counsel, Naz Elahi appeared in the court of district sessions judge in the cases registered against him after the May 9, 2023 riots at the cantonment police station here.

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2024