Pakistan’s Imran Khan charged: What happens next?

 

Pakistan’s political temperature shot up another notch when former Prime Minister Imran Khan was charged by police under anti-terrorism laws after making accusatory comments during a public rally.

While he has not responded to the charges himself, his lawyers appealed for pre-arrest bail on Monday at the Islamabad High Court, which granted Khan protective bail until Thursday, when he is likely to appear before an anti-terrorism court in the capital.

In a speech on Saturday evening in Islamabad to protest the arrest and alleged torture of his Chief of Staff Shahbaz Gill, Khan is accused of “threatening” state officials and promising to mount a legal challenge after Gill was arrested on August 9.

Khan singled out senior Islamabad police officials and a female judge who earlier in the week approved detaining Gill for two days. Gill faces sedition charges after he was accused of inciting mutiny against the country’s powerful military.

He accused police of torturing Gill in custody and said the charges against his ally were part of “a conspiracy” to pit his party against the military. Police have denied the torture allegations.

“When I asked Islamabad police ‘tell me what did you do [to Gill]’, I was told that ‘we did nothing. We got a boot from behind [to follow orders]’,” Khan said in his address.

References:

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