LONDON: Britain’s foreign ministry said on Saturday it was monitoring the situation in Pakistan closely after the arrest of the country’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan which could bar the opposition leader from standing in an upcoming election. 

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party called for peaceful protests against the decision, but there was only a limited public response on Saturday evening. 

The arrest was the latest in a series of blows that have weakened Khan’s political standing, after he fell out with Pakistan’s powerful military and his party splintered. 

“The UK has a close and long-standing relationship with Pakistan,” a Foreign Office spokesperson said. “We support democratic principles and adherence to the rule of law. We are closely monitoring the situation.” 

Legal experts say the guilty verdict reached by an Islamabad district court could eliminate Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s greatest rival in a national election expected in November. 

Khan, 70, is a former cricket star who went on to forge a political career, serving as prime minister from 2018 to 2022. He has denied wrongdoing and in a pre-recorded video address released by his party he asked supporters to protest peacefully. 

“By the time you hear this statement, they will have arrested me. I have only one appeal: don’t sit silently at home. I am struggling for you and the country and your children’s future,” he said. 

His conviction came a day after Pakistan’s high court temporarily halted the district court trial. It was not immediately clear why the trial had proceeded despite the high court decision. 

Khan’s deputy and former foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who PTI said would lead the party in Khan’s absence, said their leader had been denied a fair trial. 

“We have to struggle for his freedom — we have to fight legally and politically and move in a peaceful way in line with Imran Khan’s directives,” he said in a video address. 

Khan has been charged in a string of cases since being ousted from the premiership in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in April 2022. 

Once criticized for being under the thumb of powerful generals, Khan’s ouster that year came amid worsening relations between him and then army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. 

Khan has said the army, under General Asim Munir, is still targeting him and his party in a bid to keep him out of the elections and prevent him from returning to power. The army denies this.