2023-08-07 06:22:22
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on March 17, 2023, in Lahore. AKHTAR SOOMRO / REUTERS
Sentencing Imran Khan to three years in prison could be the final blow. Reclusive for weeks in his residence in Zaman Park in Lahore, only moving for legal appointments, the former Pakistani prime minister knew that, sooner or later, he would be arrested there. Imran Khan was sentenced on Saturday August 5 to three years in prison for corruption. The Islamabad court found him guilty of concealing “profits he has deliberately and intentionally derived from the public purse”.
The electoral commission had begun to investigate this so-called “Toshakhana” affair in October 2022. Imran Khan is accused of having bought back gifts received when he was in power and whose value he underestimated, before reselling them to the high price for an undeclared profit. “His dishonesty has been established beyond any possible doubt”, ruled the court. The former captain of the cricket team, who was not present at the hearing, was immediately arrested at his home and then transferred to Attock prison, located about 60 kilometers from Islamabad.
This condemnation destroys almost all the hopes of the former prime minister to compete in the next elections, initially scheduled for the fall. By law, his three-year prison sentence should make him ineligible for five years. “It is obvious that the government and the establishment are trying at all costs to have him condemned in order to eliminate him from the electoral scene”says Zahid Hussain, a Pakistani political analyst.
” Few of [ses prédécesseurs] who received gifts in an official capacity might be able to pass a similar test if their records were to be scrutinized with the same vigor,” abounded, Sunday, August 6, the editorial of Dawna leading Pakistani daily that judges « excessive » the sentence imposed on Mr. Khan.
A judgment rendered with “apparent haste”
Several observers expressed concern about the manner in which the trial was conducted and the “the apparent haste with which judgment was rendered”. The government claims for its part that the arrest of Imran Khan is not politically motivated and that he had every opportunity to defend himself. “A thief was arrested today”Jubilee Marriyum Aurangzeb, Minister of Information and Government Spokesperson.
Imran Khan’s defense will appeal this verdict. “His team of lawyers is formidable and it is possible that he will benefit either from a reduced sentence which would allow him not to be politically disqualified, or from an annulment of his conviction”estime Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, président du Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency. “But this is by far not the only case in which he has to defend himself and many of them could earn him the same kind of condemnation”he continues.
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