Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested on Saturday, August 5, after being sentenced for concealment and sale of property, according to the Islamabad district court. It is not the first time that the former president has faced justice in Pakistan. The arrest adds to a tense political climate between his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and his country’s army.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested on Saturday 5 August after being convicted of corruption in connection with a case of gifts received while he was prime minister. His arrest was confirmed by the entourage of the current Pakistani Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif.
The court ruling sentences him to three years in prison for concealment and sale of property.
Khan is accused of having misused his position during his tenure period (2018-2022), by buying and selling gifts, which were state-owned and given to him during visits abroad, which reached a value of more than 140 million Pakistani rupees, about $490,000.
The law in Pakistan mandates that all gifts must be declared and the trustee in charge is allowed to keep them if the value is less than a certain amount or if an official purchase price is agreed.
The gifts allegedly included watches, which government officials say were sold by people close to Khan in Dubai. A list shared by the Pakistani Information Ministry shows that the most expensive gift was a Rolex “limited edition Master Graff” watch, valued at $300,000..
Reactions from the political extremes
Imran Khan, who was the South Asian country’s prime minister until April 2022, was not at the sentencing hearing in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Despite this, after the sentence was issued, the police came to his house in Lahore city to arrest him and take him to the capital.
“We will appeal the verdict,” said one of Khan’s defense lawyers, Intezar Hussain Panjutha, in dialogue with the AFP news agency, in parallel to the government’s confirmation.
Moments before being arrested, the former president posted a video on his social networks for his followers, requesting to remain “peaceful and strong.” “My arrest was expected and I recorded this message before he […]. I want my party members to remain peaceful, firm and strong,” Khan said.
Chairman Imran Khan’s message:
My arrest was expected & I recorded this message before my arrest.
It is one more step in fulfilling London Plan but I want my party workers to remain peaceful, steadfast and strong.
We bow before no one but Allah who is Al Haq. We believe in… pic.twitter.com/1kqg6HQVac
—Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) August 5, 2023
Simultaneously, a group of ‘pro-Khan’ lawyers came to his home in Zaman Park to chant slogans in protest at the arrest of their leader. Meanwhile, in the same city, sympathizers of the rival political party distributed sweets to celebrate the arrest. Pakistani police have already confirmed the arrest of some protesters.
Both the news from the authorities regarding the demonstrations and the former prime minister’s call for calm are relevant in this case, given the background. D.fter his arrest in May, his followers attacked government and military properties across the country. The situation, out of control, left several dead.
His judicial record and politics
It is not the first case of this type in which Khan is involved. Pakistan’s Election Court found him guilty last October of illegally selling state-owned gifts while serving as prime minister.
Nor is it the first time that the former president has been deprived of his liberty. In fact, it is the second, in less than four months. In May this year he was detained by Pakistan’s Anti-Corruption Agency for another corruption case. However, he was released on bail days after the arrest.
However, the arrest on August 5 could be decisive for Khan in his country’s politics, since the law there determines that no person with a criminal conviction can hold or run for public office.
Tension between Khan and the Pakistani army
The PTI leader came to power in 2018 thanks to an anti-corruption speech and his political charisma, which made him popular. However, he was expelled from his position, after being ousted by a parliamentary vote in April 2022a year before the end of his term, in the midst of high inflation, an increase in his country’s deficit and latent corruption, which he had promised to eradicate.
Since then, Khan claims that he and his party have been victims of more than 150 legal cases, including several on charges of corruption, terrorism and inciting violence for deadly protests after his first arrest. Despite this, opinion polls in Pakistan, according to Reuters, place him as the most popular leader in the country.
The former minister has repeatedly accused a high-ranking army officer of having conspired to assassinate him, last November, in the middle of an electoral meeting, in which he was shot in the leg. In June, Khan, in a dialogue with the Reuters news agency, assured that the army is trying to destroy his political party.
Khan has also said that the army, currently under the leadership of General Asim Munir, constantly attacks him and his party to keep him out of the electoral landscape and prevent his return to power. The army denies the former president’s accusations and claims to have a neutral position in political terms.
For her part, Pakistan’s Information Minister, Maryam Aurangzeb, clarifies that the arrest of the former prime minister has nothing to do with the upcoming elections to be held in the South Asian country later this year. She claimed that Khan had every opportunity to defend himself against the charges against him.
The country has been the scene for years of dismissals of former prime ministers with the intervention of the Pakistani army. Former Prime Minister Khan is the number seven to be arrested in Pakistan.
With AP and Reuters
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