{"id":19915,"date":"2023-08-06T14:28:12","date_gmt":"2023-08-06T08:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?p=19915"},"modified":"2023-08-06T14:28:12","modified_gmt":"2023-08-06T08:43:12","slug":"pakistans-former-prime-minister-imran-khan-handed-3-year-sentence-and-moved-to-high-security-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?p=19915","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan&#8217;s former Prime Minister Imran Khan handed 3-year sentence and moved to high-security prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>ISLAMABAD &#8211;<\/strong>\u00a0 Pakistan\u2019s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested Saturday after a court handed him a three-year jail sentence for corruption, a development that could end his future in politics.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The court ruled that Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022 but remains the country&#8217;s leading opposition figure, had concealed assets after selling state gifts. Police moved quickly to take the former cricket star from his home in the eastern city of Lahore to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, senior police officer Ali Nasir Rizvi said. Later Saturday, he was transferred to a high-security prison notorious for its harsh conditions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Critics say efforts to put the divisive politician behind bars are politically motivated and have intensified ahead of general elections to be held later this year. They argue that Khan&#8217;s popularity and a large support base, combined with his ability to mobilize massive crowds, pose a threat to the ruling coalition and its backers in Pakistan\u2019s powerful military that has been the final arbiter of the country\u2019s politics since independence from Britain in 1947.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This is the second time this year that Khan has been detained, joining other former Pakistani prime ministers who have been arrested and seen military interventions over the years. He has been slapped with more than 150 legal cases since his removal from office, including several on charges of corruption, terrorism and inciting people to violence over deadly protests after his arrest in May when his followers attacked government and military property across the country.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The prison sentence could bar Khan from politics ahead of this year&#8217;s elections under a law that says people with a criminal conviction cannot hold or run for public office. His Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI, said it will challenge the decision.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Information Minister Maryam Aurangzeb denied Khan\u2019s arrest had anything to do with upcoming elections and said Khan had been given every opportunity to defend himself against the asset concealment charges. \u201cInstead 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,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Aurangzeb added that Khan has been \u201cproven guilty of illegal practices, corruption, concealing assets and wrongly declaring wealth in tax returns.\u201d PTI spokesman Rauf Hasan described the asset concealment trial as the \u201cworst in history and tantamount to the murder of justice.\u201d Khan\u2019s party released a video message showing him at his Lahore home behind a desk with the Pakistani and PTI flags in the background. It wasn\u2019t immediately clear when the recording was made.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He told his supporters that he would be in jail by the time the message reached them and that they should not stay quietly in their homes. \u201cI am not doing this for my freedom,\u201d he said. \u201cI am doing it for my nation, you, your children\u2019s future. If you don\u2019t stand up for your rights, you will live the life of slaves and slaves do not have a life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He urged people to peacefully protest until they get their rights, namely a government of their choice through voting and \u201cnot the one like today\u2019s occupying power.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In Lahore, a group of pro-Khan lawyers reached his Zaman Park home and chanted slogans protesting his conviction and arrest. In the same city, supporters of a rival political party handed out sweets to celebrate the detention.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Khan was shifted Saturday evening to a high-security jail in Punjab\u2019s Attock district that is known for its harsh conditions. Its inmate population includes convicted militants and militants awaiting trial.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Khan is the seventh former prime minister to be arrested in Pakistan. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was arrested and hanged in 1979. The current prime minister\u2019s brother, Nawaz Sharif, who also served as prime minister, was arrested several times on corruption allegations.-(AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ISLAMABAD &#8211;\u00a0 Pakistan\u2019s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested Saturday after a court handed him a three-year jail sentence for corruption, a development that could end his future in politics. The court ruled that Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022 but remains the country&#8217;s leading opposition figure, had concealed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nepal"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Pakistan&#039;s former Prime Minister Imran Khan handed 3-year sentence and moved to high-security prison - KathmanduPati<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?p=19915\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pakistan&#039;s former Prime Minister Imran Khan handed 3-year sentence and moved to high-security prison - KathmanduPati\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"ISLAMABAD &#8211;\u00a0 Pakistan\u2019s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested Saturday after a court handed him a three-year jail sentence for corruption, a development that could end his future in politics. The court ruled that Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022 but remains the country&#8217;s leading opposition figure, had concealed [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?p=19915\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"KathmanduPati\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kathmandupatienglish\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-08-06T08:43:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/imran-khan-ap-1200.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"845\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"KathmanduPati\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"KathmanduPati\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?p=19915#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?p=19915\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"KathmanduPati\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/#\/schema\/person\/bbe4e117cde7a3a56af3321608bf6b37\"},\"headline\":\"Pakistan&#8217;s former Prime Minister Imran Khan handed 3-year sentence and moved to high-security prison\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-08-06T08:43:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?p=19915\"},\"wordCount\":661,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?p=19915#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/imran-khan-ap-1200.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Nepal\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?p=19915#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?p=19915\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?p=19915\",\"name\":\"Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan handed 3-year sentence and moved to high-security prison - KathmanduPati\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?p=19915#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?p=19915#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/imran-khan-ap-1200.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-08-06T08:43:12+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?p=19915#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?p=19915\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?p=19915#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/imran-khan-ap-1200.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/imran-khan-ap-1200.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":845,\"caption\":\"File photo\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?p=19915#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Pakistan&#8217;s former Prime Minister Imran Khan handed 3-year sentence and moved to high-security prison\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/\",\"name\":\"KathmanduPati\",\"description\":\"voice of a changing era\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/english.kathmandupati.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"RB Media House Pvt. 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