Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan was arrested on Saturday within minutes of a court sentencing him in absentia to three years in prison on corruption charges.
Previous attempts to arrest Khan have resulted in massive riots by his supporters, but the response over the weekend was relatively muted, with only a smattering of rallies held by his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party across the country.
Khan was taken into custody at his home in Lahore on Saturday. On prior occasions, the police were held off by mobs of supporters who formed human shields around Khan’s house. In May, the authorities sent a paramilitary squad to arrest Khan in a surprise shock-and-awe operation at the Islamabad High Court, in part because arresting him at home was proving so difficult. The move enraged the Pakistani judiciary, which nullified the arrest and ordered Khan released a few days later.
On Saturday, the police moved quickly and quietly to arrest Khan at home, apparently encountering minimal resistance. Khan managed to record a brief video message to his supporters before he was taken into custody, asking them to hit the streets and protest what he denounced as a politically motivated prosecution.
Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan, center, is escorted by security officials as he arrives to appear in a court, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Friday, May 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
“I am not doing this for my freedom. I am doing it for my nation, you, your children’s future. If you don’t stand up for your rights, you will live the life of slaves and slaves do not have a life,” Khan said, denouncing the government of President Shehbaz Sharif as an “occupying power.”
“I have only one appeal: don’t sit at home silently. I am struggling for you and the country and your children’s future,” he said.
Khan was quickly moved via a high-security armed convoy to the high-security Attock prison in Punjab, a facility known for its harsh conditions. A prison official told Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper that a “VVIP cell” was prepared in advance for the first ex-prime minister ever to be incarcerated in Attock. The cell has a “fan, bed, and washroom” but no air conditioning.
Khan’s lawyers and PTI officials denounced the choice of prison facilities and complained they were denied access to Khan, even though he needs to sign certain documents to appeal his sentence. They also worried that incarcerating the former PM in such a grim penitentiary could endanger his health.
“He is a 70-year-old man and a former elected prime minister so legally he should be given a better class (of conditions) inside the jail,” said Gohar Khan, a member of Khan’s legal team.
“His life is in danger,” said PTI vice chairman and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Sunday, without elaborating on the threat.
Khan survived an assassination attempt while campaigning in November 2022, suffering a gunshot wound to the leg. He has frequently accused the Sharif government of plotting to kill him, refusing to attend some court hearings because he claimed the courthouses were filled with government assassins.
Khan supporters insist his arrest was a political stunt designed to take Khan out of the upcoming elections, which he believes he would probably win. Khan was ejected from the prime minister’s office in April 2022 by a parliamentary vote of no confidence and has been running a populist, Islamist campaign to regain power ever since.
“As a consequence of today’s conviction, he has been barred to take part in the politics for five years – but if the sentence and the conviction is suspended as we are hoping by the superior courts, he will then be able to come back to politics,” Khan’s lawyer Intazar Hussain Panjutha said.
Khan and his party clashed with Pakistan’s powerful military establishment during protests against his previous arrest. After rioters damaged military property, the government considered banning PTI from politics altogether. The response to Khan’s arrest on Saturday might have been subdued because the military warned it would act decisively against further riots.
Supporters of Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan chant slogans at a rally in Lahore late on March 25, 2023. (Photo by ARIF ALI/AFP via Getty Images)
“Many vocal supporters of Mr Khan – who would previously post regularly about him on social media – now feel nervous to express their opinion or even have quietly deleted their previous comments,” the BBC speculated on Saturday.
“As far as protests go, there’s not a planned one as yesterday protesters were raided by the police and detained,” a PTI official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Sunday after about a hundred arrests were reportedly made.
“We don’t want to have our workers go through more pain and have our workers in prison, and we don’t want our leadership to be in prison, especially at this time,” said Khan spokesman Zulfi Bukhari.
Khan accused the military of conspiring against him because he accused military commanders of corruption, picking a fight that no Pakistani politician would be favored to win, given the immense political influence of the military establishment and Pakistan’s history of outright coups.
“Imran Khan’s arrest marks a significant turning point in the state’s actions against PTI,” Islamabad-based political analyst Zaigham Khan said on Saturday, saying the former PM’s arrest was “designed to hinder PTI’s chances in the upcoming elections.”
Khan has been the subject of about 150 criminal investigations since he left office. The one that brought him down concerned his alleged habit of keeping gifts from foreign leaders that should have been turned over to Pakistan’s anti-corruption watchdog agency and reselling those gifts for enormous profits without properly declaring the income.
PTI said this investigation was nothing but a campaign of “political revenge,” and Khan refused to dignify the charges by showing up in court, which is why he was convicted in absentia on Saturday.
Pakistani government officials insisted the case against Khan was not politicized. The judge who announced the verdict, Humayun Dilawar, said the allegations against the former prime minister have been “proven” beyond doubt.
Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb, among the most outspoken critics of Khan in the Shehbaz Sharif administration, said Saturday’s verdict was “a simple case of a thief punished for his crime.”
Supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan run for cover after police firing tear gas shells to disperse them during clashes outside Khan’s residence, in Lahore, Pakistan, Tuesday, March 14, 2023. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
“My message to Imran Khan is straightforward: Your time is up,” Aurangzeb said.
The Indian Express said Khan “had it coming,” and was merely getting a taste of the “political vindictiveness he had resorted to during his tenure as the PM,” including politically charged prosecutions of his eventual successor Shehbaz Sharif and his family.
“Khan’s strategy after being ousted from power has weakened parliament. His attacks on both the military and the civilian leaders gave no space for a consensus. His tactic of forcing the establishment to hold elections by street protests deepened the political divide. The former PM has been brave in confronting the military, but short-sighted in understanding the grip the military has on Pakistan’s politics,” the Indian Express concluded.