Pakistani police arrested former Prime Minister Imran Khan at his house in the eastern city of Lahore on Saturday after a court convicted him in an asset concealing case and sentenced him to three years in prison.
This is the second time this year that the popular opposition leader has been detained.
Khan could be excluded from politics as a result of his prison sentence, as the law prohibits persons with a criminal record from holding or running for public office. His Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party denounced the judgment and said it will appeal to a higher court.
While a higher court can stay the conviction, Khan is eventually barred from running for office by the country’s election commission.
While a higher court can stay the conviction, Khan is eventually barred from running for office by the country’s election commission.
Following Khan’s conviction, an Islamabad court issued an arrest warrant. According to senior police official Ali Nasir Rizvi, authorities moved promptly to transport the famous politician from his residence to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. It was unclear where Khan was being transported.
Khan has been charged with more than 150 legal cases since his ouster from power in a no-confidence vote in parliament in April 2022, including several on charges of corruption, terrorism, and inciting people to violence over deadly protests in May that saw his followers attack government and military property across the country. Despite his dismissal, cricketer-turned-politician Khan remains the biggest opposition figure.
Rauf Hasan, a PTI spokesman, called the asset concealment trial the “worst in history and tantamount to the murder of justice.”
Information Minister Maryam Aurangzeb denied Khan’s imprisonment had anything to do with the upcoming elections. She claimed Khan was given every opportunity to defend himself against the wealth concealment claims. “Instead, Imran Khan used the time to delay the court proceedings and went back and forth to the high court and the supreme court to halt this case,” she claimed.
Aurangzeb went on to say that Khan has been “proven guilty of illegal practices, corruption, concealing assets, and incorrectly declaring wealth in tax returns.”
In Lahore, a group of pro-Khan lawyers protested his conviction and detention by marching to his Zaman Park residence and chanting slogans.
Pakistan has seen its share of past prime leaders jailed and interventions by its powerful military throughout the years.
Khan is Pakistan’s seventh former prime minister to be arrested. In 1979, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was arrested and murdered. Nawaz Sharif, the current prime minister’s brother, and a former prime minister, was detained multiple times on corruption charges.
