Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan gestures to media members at his residence in Lahore, Pakistan, May 18, 2023.
Mohsin Raza | Reuters
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for leaking state secrets, his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party confirmed in a post on social media site X on Tuesday.
The former national cricket captain became Pakistan’s prime minister in 2018. Khan, now 71, was removed from office by political opponents in 2022, later arrested in May 2023 and is serving a three-year prison sentence on a corruption conviction.
Khan and his supporters have described the allegations as politically motivated.
“There can be no case more ridiculous than the cipher. What can be more ridiculous than Pakistan jailing its Prime Minister and Foreign Minister for exposing the foreign conspiracy!!,” PTI, Pakistan’s largest political party, wrote on X.
Cipher refers to the name of the case in which both Khan and former Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi were sentenced to 10 years in prison, and revolves around secret diplomatic communications between Pakistan’s ambassador to the US and Islamabad that were allegedly leaked, when Khan was prime minister minister.
During a rally in March 2022, Khan brandished a document on stage that he said was evidence of a foreign conspiracy against him, claiming that a particular country was insisting on removing him from power. Although he did not explicitly name the United States, he later became vocally critical of Washington.
A month later, he was removed from office by a vote of no confidence by opposition MPs on charges of corruption and unconstitutional actions. The allegations were confirmed by the country’s Supreme Court.
Khan’s opponents said at the time that the document was meaningless, but Khan was accused by prosecutors on Tuesday of leaking classified material and damaging diplomatic relations as a result of the incident.
Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan (R) addresses his supporters during an anti-government march towards the capital Islamabad in Gujranwala on November 1, 2022, calling for early elections.
Arif Ali | AFP | Getty Images
The former prime minister and his supporters said in 2022 that his overthrow was a conspiracy planned by current Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the United States, the latter having a long and complicated relationship with the Pakistani government. Khan’s supporters say tensions began when the former leader began openly criticizing Pakistan’s powerful army and that Washington also wanted to see the removal of Khan, who has long been critical of the United States.
Sharif and the Biden administration deny the allegations.
Khan later made an apparent about-face in his accusations against the U.S., saying he wanted to improve his country’s relations with the world’s largest superpower if re-elected, although he is now barred from participating in the country’s Feb. 8 general election, according to many political figures Analysts had seen him as the likely favorite for the election.
“For me it’s over, it’s behind me. The Pakistan I want to lead must have good relations with everyone, especially the United States,” he said in an interview in November 2022.
Still, he criticized Islamabad’s relationship with Washington, saying: “Our relationship with the US was like a master-servant relationship… But for that I blame my own governments more than the US.”
Khan remains extremely popular across the country of 230 million people. After his arrest in 2023, the PTI and supporters of Khan called for the closure of Pakistan, blocking of roads and mass protests to demand his release.
Since then, however, numerous demonstrators and politicians have been arrested, which has affected the population’s willingness to demonstrate.
“The message is clear,” a freelance writer in Islamabad, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, told CNBC. “Withdraw or go to prison.”
Source link
2024-01-30 09:58:46
www.cnbc.com