At least 41 new cases have been registered against jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, his lawyer said on Thursday amid a recent indictment in the GHQ attack case.

“Overall 300 cases are registered against him [Khan] and none of the cases are on merit. They are concocted and politically motivated,” he said while appearing on News Insight with Amir Zia which was aired on Thursday.

The Pakistan Tehreeke-e-Insaf has been behind bars for more than a year as his legal battles continue. In July this year, his hopes for release were dashed when he and his wife Bushra Bibi were arrested in a state gifts reference hours after a court acquitted both in the unlawful marriage case.

His wife got relief in October when the court released him, but it was short-lived. Earlier in the day, a special court issued an arrest warrant for her in the new Toshakhana case for failing to appear in court for the past 10 hearings.

In July, a UN panel of experts found Khan’s detention “had no legal basis and appears to have been intended to disqualify him from running for political office”.

While speaking about the arrest of the party’s leadership, Chaudhry said that they were detained for several hours without any notice and added that the police were violating orders by not presenting them in court.

He claimed that Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Omar Ayub was arrested at a time when the party formed a five-member committee to negotiate with the government under his leadership.

“Tell me what kind of message it [government] is giving to us. This government is the beneficiary of this chaos. They do not want normalcy,” Chaudhry said.

Khan’s lawyer added that the committee has a two-point agenda: form a judicial commission over events of May 9 and November 26 and “immediate release” of party leaders arrested in “fake” cases.

When asked, he shared that the former prime minister had detailed meetings with party workers, leaders and former party leaders as they had appeared in the court for a May 9 case. Chaudhry claimed that Khan was in “high spirits” and gave time to everyone.

When asked about the strategy to tackle legal battles, he said: “We are working as per the law and our ILF [Insaf Lawyers Forum] team is involved in it. Last month, we released 2,800 supporters from Islamabad. 4,000 of our people are detained as [PTI Chairman] Gohar Khan said 139 are missing. We afraid our martyrs’ numbers are in the hundreds.”