ISLAMABAD: Pakistani legal experts and political analysts have said that former prime minister Imran Khan was convicted of concealing assets made from the sale of state gifts on "questionable" procedural grounds, fearing that his arrest would lead to a delay in the upcoming nationwide polls in the South Asian country.
An Islamabad court on Saturday sentenced Khan, who was ousted in a parliamentary no-trust vote last year, to three-year imprisonment in the case, which has come to be popularly known as the Toshakhana (state repository) case.
The prison term could bar the former cricket star from politics under a law that prohibits people with a criminal conviction from holding or running for public office. He could also lose the chairmanship of the party he founded, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
Critics say efforts to put Khan behind bars are politically motivated and have intensified ahead of elections due to be held later this year. Khan’s popularity and a large support base pose a threat to the ruling coalition and its backers in Pakistan’s powerful military that has been the final arbiter of the country’s politics since independence from Britain in 1947.
Nimra Arshad, a high court lawyer, termed the procedure followed by the court in Khan's conviction was "questionable" without the examination of defence witnesses.
“The decision by the [Islamabad] sessions court to convict Imran Khan has very little to do with the law and everything to do with the current political quagmire the country finds itself in,” Arshad told Arab News on Sunday.
“The accused was also absent from court at the time of the verdict's announcement that raises serious questions regarding the court’s compliance with the fundamental right to fair trial and due process enshrined in Article 10-A of the constitution.”
She said this would undoubtedly become a "core issue" before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) where Khan's party would be appealing his conviction.
Shoaib Shaheen, a lawyer on Khan's legal team, said the trial was not fair as the sessions court judge did not allow the defence to present its witnesses.
“This is the first and may be the last case where the judge rejected the defence witnesses without listening to them, saying 'they are not relevant',” Shaheen told Arab News. “The powerful factions in our country and the government were unable to compete with Khan in politics.”
Therefore, he said, they resorted to manipulating the system of law and justice to reach a "hasty" decision. “We will file a petition on Monday in the Islamabad High Court and will hopefully immediately get bail after the first hearing,” Khan's lawyer said.
Another legal expert, Usama Khawar, saw Saturday's developments, including Khan’s arrest and the Council of Common Interests' (CCI) decision to approve new census, interlinked with each other, apparently aimed at delaying the polls.
“The government wants to see Khan cut to size before the caretaker setup is installed and also approval of new census which was long pending before the CCI showed that general elections may not take place this year at least,” he told Arab News.
The government of Khan successor, Shehbaz Sharif, will dissolve parliament on August 9, the incumbent Pakistani premier has said. This would be followed by the transfer of power to a caretaker setup, which would be bound to hold elections in 90 days, according to the constitution.
But the Sharif administration on Saturday approved results of Pakistan’s first-ever digital population census, leading to widespread speculation that general elections due in October or November might be postponed. With the new census notified, the country's election regulator is constitutionally bound to delimit the electoral constituencies as per the fresh census, a process that may take up to six months.
Khawar said the hasty decision showed that the government did not want to leave "anything to chance." The expert said he saw little chance for immediate relief for Khan in the case as legal procedures were completed in the case despite a hasty decision.
“Haste is more of a political nature but the sessions court has completed legal procedures as it had given them (Khan and his party) chances to present their witnesses,” he said, adding though the court had asked Khan's attorneys to present their witnesses and arguments within a day, instead of giving them week or so.
Ahmed Bilal Mahboob, president of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) think tank, termed Khan’s arrest an "unfortunate development," but said it was legally correct.
“It is somewhat different in the sense that it is a constitutional, a legal issue which occurred due to the misstatement of the former prime minister as a legislator. He was supposed to present a statement of assets and liabilities which he failed to do,” Mehboob told Arab News.
Khan was fortunate to have got two opportunities to contest this case in the high court and the Supreme Court, he said.
“This is a luxury which unfortunately was not available to Nawaz Sharif and was not available to Yousaf Raza Gilani, both [prime ministers] were disqualified by the Supreme Court,” Mehboob added.
