Former prime minister spent the night at a high-security prison after a court handed him a three-year jail sentence for corruption, a development that could end his future in politics.
The court ruled on Saturday that the PTI chairman, 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 people 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.
It’s the second time this year that the former prime minister has been detained, joining other former Pakistani prime ministers who had been arrested and incarcerated in different jails. But his current residence 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. —INP
