The most well-liked politician in Pakistan, Imran Khan, faces a 14-year prison sentence this month in a case that his party claims is being used to coerce him into remaining silent.
Long a source of annoyance for the influential military, the former prime minister has been detained since August 2023 and is facing numerous judicial cases that he claims are driven by politics.
The longest-running of those cases is a pending verdict for graft connected to the Al-Qadir Trust, a humanitarian foundation he and his wife established. The trial was postponed for the third time on Monday.
“The Al-Qadir Trust case, like previous cases, is being dragged on only to pressure me,” Khan said this month in one of his frequent statements railing against authorities and posted on social media by his team.
“But I demand its immediate resolution.”
According to analysts, Khan’s popularity threatens a tenuous coalition government that prevented his party from winning elections last year, and the military establishment is using the punishment as leverage with Khan.
Ayesha Siddiqa, a London-based author and military expert for Pakistan, stated, “The establishment’s deal is he comes out and stays quiet, stays decent, until the next election.”
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