#Pakistan 🇵🇰

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Pakistani Corrupt Military Use Age-Old Tactics To Keep Imran Khan Away From Election

Former Prime Minister, Once Corrupt Military’s Golden Boy, Has Been Sentenced In Two Separate Politically Motivated Cases To 10 and 14 Years

— Hannah Ellis-Petersen, South Asia Correspondent | Guardian USA | Wednesday January 31, 2024

A vendor holds a picture of the jailed Former Prime Minister Imran Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan. Photograph: Bilawal Arbab/EPA

The script seems eerily familiar. Imran Khan, once the golden boy of Pakistan’s Corrupt Powerful Military Establishment, found himself at the receiving end of not one, but two, damning court verdicts this week.

Sentenced to 10 years in jail on Tuesday, and 14 years on Wednesday, the brazen timing of the convictions in two separate cases made one thing abundantly clear: the military will stop at nothing to keep Khan away from Pakistan’s general election, which will be held next week.

It was not so long ago that Khan himself benefited from these age-old tactics utilised repeatedly in Pakistan’s chequered political history. In 2018, when Khan was running for prime minister, it was the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif who had fallen out of grace with the military and found himself facing charges of corruption and being barred from office. Less than two weeks before the election in July 2018, Sharif was sentenced to 10 years in jail.

Now the tables have turned again. Khan has become the military’s harshest critic, confined behind bars, while a cowed Sharif has reconciled with the army generals and his path back to power has been cleared. As allegations of pre-poll rigging have abounded, Sharif is expected to be all but escorted into an election win.

Khan was already banned from running in the election, but the back-to-back convictions and hefty prison sentences speak to the strength of the military’s campaign against its former protege.

Since he was toppled from power in April 2022 – after a vote of no confidence widely acknowledged to have been orchestrated by the military – Khan’s criticisms of the army establishment and its tight control over Pakistani politics has been unprecedented.

Yet his campaign against the military was always doomed to fail given its iron grip, and since August, when Khan was finally arrested, it was made clear that the military would stop at nothing to sideline Khan and destroy his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.

Any pretence of due judicial process being followed was abandoned entirely at both cases where Khan was sentenced this week. Instead of an open courtroom, the trials were conducted inside the jail where Khan is being detained and his lawyers were not allowed to choose or cross-examine any witnesses.

Given the hefty crackdown on PTI in recent months, including all rallies being shut down by police and all coverage of the party largely banned from news channels, the party is a shadow of its former self, even if it still commands huge support from voters.

For many observers, Khan’s double convictions only serve to confirm that the elections are likely to be among the least credible in Pakistan’s recent history, pushing the country several steps back on its turbulent path towards democracy.

It is reflected too in the unusually muted political campaigning period. As the military has proved to be unafraid to show its hand in “managing” the election, even as it claims to be apolitical, all semblance of a fair fight has dissipated, with parties barely even putting forward a manifesto.

Among Pakistan’s voters, many of whom still revere Khan, there is a sense of anger and apathy. Yet most will echo the same refrain; in Pakistani politics, nothing ever really changes.

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Imran Khan, Pakistan Former PM, Sentenced To 14 Years in Prison For Corruption (Politically Motivated Charges)

Ruling against Khan and wife Bushra Bibi comes just a day after a 10-year sentence was handed down, and just before Pakistan goes to the polls in a general election

— Hannah Ellis-Petersen, South Asia Correspondent | Wednesday 31 January 2024

Pakistan former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, has been sentenced to 14 years in jail on corruption charges. Photograph: Mohsin Raza/Reuters

Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan has been sentenced to 14 years in jail in a corruption case, a day after he was given a 10-year sentence for leaking state secrets.

Khan’s wife, Bushra Bibi, was also handed a 14-year sentence in the case, known as Toshakhana, which accused them both of illegally selling state gifts. The judge also banned them both from holding political office for 10 years.

The sentence, given at a hearing held in the Rawalpindi prison where Khan, 71, is being held, further worsens the plight of the beleaguered former prime minister, who has been in jail since August and is facing more than 100 different charges.

The judge had denied Khan’s lawyers’ request to cross-examine witnesses in the trial and his lawyers were not present on Wednesday, when the sentence was given.

Khan questioned why there was an apparent rush to wrap up the case. “Why are you in a hurry to announce the verdict? I have not even recorded my final statement,” he told the judge, before exiting the courtroom. The verdict was then given without either Khan or Bibi present.

Bibi surrendered to the authorities at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi on Wednesday morning.

The Toshakhana verdict came a day after a special court, also held in prison, found Khan guilty of leaking state secrets in relation to a sensitive diplomatic cable that allegedly went missing in his possession. Khan had described the trial as a sham and lawyers said he would be appealing against the verdict.

The timing of both consecutive convictions was deemed as significant by observers, coming a week before Pakistan goes to the polls in its long-delayed general election. Though Khan is already banned from running, he remains hugely popular among voters.

This is Khan’s second sentencing in the Toshakaha case, which related to allegations that the former prime minister bought several gifts given by rulers and government officials at low prices and sold them on for an undeclared profit. Khan had denied all wrongdoing.

The anti-corruption watchdog alleged that Khan and his wife had received 108 gifts from heads of state and foreign officials, some worth millions of rupees, during his term as prime minister and that many had been illegally kept or sold by the pair.

Khan was initially given a three-year sentence in the case in August, but after a higher court threw out the judgment, the legal proceedings began again after investigators presented fresh evidence relating to jewellery given by the Saudi crown prince and allegedly kept by Khan and his wife.

On Wednesday, the judge issued an even more severe sentence against both Khan and his wife, which included a collective fine of 787m rupees ($2.8m).

Khan, who was toppled from power in 2022, has claimed that the mounting cases against him are politically motivated.

Since he was removed from office in a vote of no-confidence, Khan began to publicly criticise the country’s powerful military, who have long been accused of meddling in politics. He alleged the military leadership bore a “grudge” against him and were orchestrating his imprisonment so he could not run in the elections.

Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has also faced harassment and intimidation, with senior leadership imprisoned or put under pressure to leave the party, while workers have been prevented from campaigning or holding political rallies in the buildup to the election.

A statement by PTI on X after Wednesday’s verdict said Khan and Bibi had faced “yet another kangaroo trial in which no right to defence was given to both”.

The party said there had been a “complete destruction of every existing law in Pakistan in two days”.