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A Pakistani court has sentenced more than 100 parliamentarians, members and allies of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s political party to 10 years each in prison for involvement in protests against the military in 2023.
Among the 108 convicted on Thursday were Omar Ayub Khan, a member of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party who leads the opposition in the National Assembly, and Shibli Faraz, who leads the PTI in Pakistan’s Senate.
The convictions were the heaviest blow to the PTI since National Assembly elections in February 2024, when the party won the most seats but was blocked from forming a government by the powerful military. They will fuel concerns about the tightening grip on Pakistan of army chief Asim Munir.
The judgments stemmed from protests that broke out after Khan was arrested in May 2023, when supporters loyal to the former prime minister and star cricketer attacked military installations in a nuclear-armed country of 240mn where the army holds decisive sway over political affairs.
The convictions by the anti-terrorism court in the eastern city of Faisalabad, which disqualified six parliamentarians from their seats, were denounced by opposition figures and defence lawyers as politically motivated.
“For the first time in Pakistan’s judicial history, such a sad and shameful incident occurred that the leaders of the opposition in both houses [of parliament] were punished solely on the basis that they were loyal allies of Imran Khan’s political narrative, public representation, and constitutional struggle,” the PTI party wrote on social media platform X.
Khan, who has been imprisoned in the garrison city of Rawalpindi since 2023, remains a popular figure but still faces more than 150 charges ranging from corruption to terrorism. He and his supporters deny all of the charges, and claim the proceedings were engineered by the military.
Since becoming chief of army staff, Pakistan’s most powerful position, in 2022, Asim Munir has consolidated power and critics accuse him of overseeing a broad-based crackdown against political opponents.
His lieutenants are accused by human rights organisations of rigging the 2024 election and putting pressure on the judiciary and parliament to further empower the military and intelligence services at the expense of democracy.
Pakistan’s military denies any involvement in politics, and the government insists all court proceedings against PTI members were carried out in accordance with the country’s constitution.
The PTI has largely avoided mass protests since the security services violently crushed a march on the capital, Islamabad, last November.
Gohar Ali Khan, the chair of PTI, said after Thursday’s convictions that the party, which retains support in vast swaths of the country, would consider boycotting the National Assembly or taking to the streets.
He said the party planned to appeal against the convictions, which came amid a warming of ties between the US and Pakistan. In June, Munir enjoyed a two-hour lunch with US President Donald Trump, who has said the general is “very impressive”.
On Wednesday, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that Washington and Islamabad had agreed a deal to develop Pakistan’s “massive Oil Reserves”, while Pakistani officials claimed they reached an agreement to reduce US reciprocal tariffs previously set as high as 29 per cent.
