By Asif Shahzad
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) -Pakistani authorities were preparing on Monday to move former Prime Minister Imran Khan to a prison with better facilities near the national capital Islamabad after a court order, his party said on Monday.
His legal team and party had been pleading with several courts to issue orders for Khan to be shifted to Adyala Jail in garrison city of Rawalpindi, which they argued was more appropriate for a former premier.
“Arrangements are taking place,” Khan’s close aide Zulfikar Bukhari said in a message to journalists, referring to preparations to move the former premier after Khan’s lawyer, Naeem Panjutha, said a high court in the capital had ordered the move.
Panjutha later wrote on social media platform X that Khan had been moved to the new prison but then deleted that post.
Khan has been detained in a low-key, colonial era prison in the northwestern Attock district that lacked facilities like attached bathroom and television and made it harder for family and friends to visit or send newspapers, books or food.
The former prime minister has been in jail since early August after being convicted on corruption charges.
A court suspended his three year prison term, but his release on bail did not happen as authorities charged him in another case related to leaking state secrets.
Khan says the charges are designed to stop him running in an election early next year, an allegation the authorities deny.
(Reporting by Asif Shahzad, Writing by Shivam Patel; Editing by Toby Chopra and Philippa Fletcher)
