Police yesterday arrested former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan at his home in the eastern city of Lahore after a court convicted him in an asset concealment case and handed him a three-year prison sentence.
It is the second time the opposition leader has been detained this year.
The prison sentence could see Khan barred from politics, as the law says that people with a criminal conviction cannot hold or run for public office.
Photo: AFP
His Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party condemned the ruling and said it would challenge the decision in a superior court.
While a superior court can suspend the conviction, it is the country’s election body that has the final say on whether people can be in politics.
Police moved quickly to take the politician from his home to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, senior police official Ali Nasir Rizvi said.
Amir Mir, a local information minister, said that Khan was being taken to Lahore airport to be transported to the capital.
Since his ouster from power in a no-confidence vote in parliament in April last year, Khan has been slapped with more than 150 legal cases, including several on charges of corruption, terrorism and inciting people to violence over deadly protests in May.
Khan, a former cricket star, remains the leading opposition figure despite his ouster.
Rauf Hasan, a party spokesman, described the asset concealment trial as the “worst in history and tantamount to the murder of justice.”
Pakistani Minister of Information Maryam Aurangzeb denied that Khan’s arrest had anything to do with elections, due to be held later this year.
Khan had been given every opportunity to defend himself against the asset concealment charges, Aurangzeb said.
“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 said that Khan has been “proven guilty of illegal practices, corruption, concealing assets and wrongly declaring wealth in tax returns.”
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