Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has returned safely to his residence in Lahore after being released on bail after days of nationwide protests over his arrest on corruption charges.
After the court granted him bail, Khan spent hours at the courthouse in the capital, Islamabad, as he and his legal team engaged in apparent negotiations over his departure.
While on his way to his home in the eastern city of Lahore, Khan released a video statement from his vehicle saying Islamabad police tried to keep him in court through various tactics, and authorities allowed him to travel alone if he threatened to tell the police. publicly he was held there against his will.
Khan was taken away by dozens of paramilitary forces and arrested during a routine trial on Tuesday.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court declared Khan’s arrest “unlawful” and ordered authorities to present him in court the following day.
The ruling struck a blow to the government in a deadlock that led to days of rioting by Khan’s followers and raised the specter of widespread unrest in the country.
His arrest came just hours after he was reprimanded by the powerful military, which again accused him of being involved in an assassination attempt against him last year.
The 70-year-old former cricketer was arrested in what is known as the Al-Qadir Trust case. It concerns land that Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi bought from real estate magnate Malik Riaz for their Al-Qadir University Trust.
The National Accountability Bureau, Pakistan’s anti-corruption agency, alleged that Khan’s government struck a deal with Riaz in a quid pro quo arrangement. His cabinet is accused of helping Riaz launder more than $239 million while causing a loss to the national treasury.
Khan has registered dozens of cases against him in the past year – including corruption, terrorism, sedition and blasphemy – since he was impeached last April. He denies all allegations and calls them politically motivated.
Thousands arrested
Several thousand of his supporters have stormed through cities since Tuesday in protest of Khan’s detention, setting fire to buildings, blocking roads and clashing with police outside military installations.
According to the police and hospitals, at least nine people have died in the unrest. Hundreds of police officers were injured and more than 4,000 people were detained, mostly in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.
Faisal Hussain Chaudhry, a Khan lawyer, said on Friday that 10 senior leaders of his Pakistani party Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had been arrested.
‘No democracy in the army’
The interior minister has promised to re-arrest Khan, who remains wildly popular ahead of the October elections.
“There should be no violation of a court order. But if there is a way to arrest Imran Khan… it will be done,” Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah told private television channel Geo News.
Mobile data services and access to social media platforms — including Facebook and YouTube, which were shut down shortly after Khan’s arrest on Tuesday — were gradually restored across the country.
Khan has launched an unprecedented resistance campaign against the army. On Friday, speaking to reporters in the courtroom, Khan blamed the army commander, General Syed Asim Munir, for the situation in the country.
“It’s not the security establishment, it’s just one man, the army chief,” Khan said. “There is no democracy in the military.”
The military remains Pakistan’s most powerful institution, having directly ruled it through three coups for half of its 75-year history.
The military has traditionally intervened, citing economic or political instability in the country. Despite widespread fears of another intervention amid months of turmoil, the military said it stood by the democratic process.
“The senior leadership of the army, the chief of staff of the army, has complete confidence in democracy. There is no martial law,” the chief military spokesman, Major General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, told Geo.