Pakistan Former Leader Barred From Politics For Five Years
The former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran khan, has been barred from holding public office for five years by the country’s electoral authorities.
The decision was announced by the election commission of Pakistan three days after Mr. Khan was sentenced to three years in prison for corruption.
Tuesday’s announcement also means Mr. Khan will be dismissed as an MP.
Mr. Khan, 70, was elected as Pakistan’s leader in 2018, but was ousted in a no-confidence vote last year after falling out with the country’s powerful military.
His guilty verdict on Saturday was centered on charges he incorrectly declared details of presents from foreign dignitaries and proceeds from their alleged sale.
Khan’s legal team has filed an appeal seeking to set aside the guilty verdict, which the Islamabad High Court will take up on Wednesday, his lawyer Naeem Panjutha said.
The petition seen by Reuters described the conviction as “without lawful authority, tainted with bias”, and said Khan, 70, had not received an adequate hearing.
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It said the court had rejected a list of witnesses for the defence a day before reaching its verdict, calling this a “gross travesty of justice, and a slap in the face of due process and fair trial”.
The court had expedited the trial after Khan refused to attend hearings despite repeated summonses and arrest warrants. Unless overturned, the conviction will rule him out of contesting upcoming elections.
The reaction to Khan’s jailing so far has been vastly different to the outpouring of rage that followed his first arrest, even on social media, with half as many Facebook posts mentioning Khan’s name.
“The muted response to his arrest is because of the full-throttle crackdown on PTI workers after the first arrest,” columnist Usama Khilji told the AFP news agency.
“The arrests of PTI workers post the May arrest of Imran Khan, coupled with draconian laws passed in haste by [the coalition government], have had a chilling effect on Pakistani citizens.”
