Azernews.Az

Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan awoke Sunday as an inmate in a high-security prison after a court handed him a three-year sentence for corruption, a development that could end his future in politics, Azernews reports, citing Toronto Star.

The court ruled Saturday that national cricketing hero Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022 but remains the country’s leading opposition figure, had concealed assets after selling state gifts.

The prison sentence could bar him from politics under a law that prohibits anyone with a criminal conviction from holding or running for public office. He could also lose the chairmanship of the party he founded, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI.

Khan was arrested Saturday at his home in the eastern city of Lahore and taken to prison.

Critics say efforts to put him behind bars are politically motivated and have intensified ahead of elections due to be held later this year.

They argue that Khan’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’s powerful military that has been the final arbiter of the country’s politics since independence from Britain in 1947.

It’s the second time this year that Khan has been detained, joining other former Pakistani prime ministers who had been arrested and seen military interventions throughout the country’s political history.

But his current stay at the Attock prison is a far cry from his custodial conditions in May, when he was taken to a well-appointed guesthouse on a police compound in Islamabad under a Supreme Court order. He was then allowed visitors and meetings with party colleagues.

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