Ex-Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was sentenced to ten years in prison on Tuesday, less than two weeks before the country’s election, which his party is barred from contesting.
Pakistan heads to the polls next Thursday in an election already affected by claims of vote rigging, with Khan prohibited from participating and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party under a massive crackdown.
Before the election, Khan was in jail, buried under an avalanche of legal charges that he said were triggered to prevent him from returning to office again following a campaign of defiance against Pakistan’s powerful military kingmakers.
Khan has already been banned from participating in the February 8 election due to a graft conviction last year.
The sentence for leaking classified state documents was handed to him Tuesday inside Adiala prison, where Khan has spent most of his time since his arrest in August.
Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the former vice-chairman of the Pakistani Turkistan Party (PTI), who was Khan’s foreign minister throughout his four-year premiership until his removal in 2022, got the same sentence.
Party officials affirmed the judgments and sentences.