Former Pakistan PM Khan heads to Lahore after bail release

STORY: "Then I told him that ‘I will tell the whole of Pakistan that you are trying to kidnap me, forcibly detain me,'" Khan said in the car on his way to his hometown Lahore, "(and) with that pressure he let me go."

A Pakistani court ordered Khan's release on bail for two weeks, his lawyer said, after the former prime minister's arrest in a land fraud case ignited deadly protests and a tussle with the military.

The arrest, which the Supreme Court ruled "invalid and unlawful" a day earlier, has fueled instability in the nation of 220 million at a time of economic crisis, with record inflation, anemic growth and delayed IMF funding.

Khan welcomed the court's order and said the judiciary was Pakistan's only protection against the "law of the jungle."

The 70-year-old cricket hero-turned-politician was ousted as prime minister in April 2022 in a parliamentary no-confidence vote and is Pakistan's most popular leader according to opinion polls.