ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested Saturday after a court handed him a three-year jail sentence for corruption, a development that could end his future in politics.
The court ruled that Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022 but remains the country’s leading opposition figure, had concealed assets after selling state gifts. Police moved quickly to take the former cricket star from his home in the eastern city of Lahore to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, senior police officer Ali Nasir Rizvi said.
Efforts to put the divisive politician behind bars have stepped up ahead of general elections this year because his popularity and large support base, combined with his ability to mobilize massive crowds, pose a threat to the ruling coalition and its backers in Pakistan’s powerful military that has been the final arbiter of the country’s politics since independence from Britain in 1947.
This is the second time this year that Khan has been detained, joining other former Pakistani prime ministers who have been arrested and seen military interventions over the years. He has been slapped with more than 150 legal cases since his removal from office, including several on charges of corruption, terrorism and inciting people to violence over deadly protests after his arrest in May when his followers attacked government and military property across the country.
The prison sentence could bar Khan from politics ahead of this year’s elections under a law that says people with a criminal conviction cannot hold or run for public office. His Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI, said it will challenge the decision.
Information Minister Maryam Aurangzeb denied Khan’s arrest had anything to do with upcoming elections and said Khan had been given every opportunity to defend himself against the asset concealment charges.
“Instead Imran Khan used the time to delay the court proceedings and went back and forth to the high court and supreme court to halt this case,” she said.
Aurangzeb added that Khan has been “proven guilty of illegal practices, corruption, concealing assets and wrongly declaring wealth in tax returns.”
PTI spokesman Rauf Hasan described the asset concealment trial as the “worst in history and tantamount to the murder of justice.”