ISLAMABAD: Former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday responded to a statement by the Pakistan army calling him out for ‘highly irresponsible’ allegations against a serving intelligence official, saying the army was not the only institution in the country worthy of respect.

Khan, the chairman of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, has repeatedly said incumbent Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and intelligence official Maj. Gen. Faisal Naseer were behind an apparent assassination attack against his life last year. Khan alleges Naseer was also behind a second plot to kill him when he appeared for a court hearing at the Judicial Complex in Islamabad in March.

Khan has also accused Naseer of being behind the murder of a pro-Khan TV anchor, Arshad Sharif, shot dead in Nairobi last year in what Kenyan police have called a case of “mistaken identity.”

On Monday, ISPR, the army’s media wing, in a strongly worded statement called Khan’s accusations “fabricated and malicious,” and warned him of legal action if he continued with the “propaganda.”

In a video message recorded on Tuesday morning as Khan set off from Lahore to attend a court hearing in Islamabad, Khan directly took on the army’s statement. 

“ISPR has given a statement that the institution has been disrespected, the army has been disrespected because I took one intelligence officer’s name who has tried to kill me twice,” Khan said.

“ISPR, please listen to me carefully. Respect doesn’t only belong to one institution. Every citizen in the country deserves respect. Right now, I am the head of the biggest political party in the country.”

Khan repeated the allegation that Naseer had plotted twice to kill him and said he would be able to prove this if an honest investigation was allowed and police named Naseer in the First Information report.

“My question is: a former prime minister, because he took this man’s name, can’t register an FIR [police report]? We will find out what is true or lies when there is an investigation, when the FIR is registered against him, the investigation would have proved if he was innocent. He’s so powerful that I, an ex-prime minister, with our government in Punjab, we could not include his name in the FIR?”

Khan said he could prove that the country’s premier spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, had taken over the Judicial Complex in Islamabad in March ahead of his hearing as part of a plot to assassinate him. 

“The judicial complex, I will prove that the ISI, one night before took it over, I will prove that in the clothes of CTD (counterterrorism department) officials and lawyers the ISI was there, I will prove that a brigadier was sitting there, I will tell you his name, and he was monitoring everything,” Khan said.

“What was the ISI’s job in being there? I will prove that they wanted to kill me and behind them was this man,” Khan added, referring to Naseer.

He also repeated that Naseer and “his gang” were behind the killing of journalist Arshad Sharif.

“But no investigation happened, no one had the courage,” Khan said. “Because these are sacred cows, they are above the law.”

Then he addressed ISPR directly and said:

“ISPR, when an institution takes action against its own black sheep, it improves its credibility. When an institution goes after corrupt, dishonest people, the institution becomes stronger. What is this, that if you take the name [of one army official] you are disrespecting the whole army? This is my army. It’s my Pakistan, it’s not just yours. It’s our army. This pattern, that whoever criticizes, you shut their mouths, it is only harming your own institution.”

Khan, who was ousted from the PM’s office via a parliamentary no-trust vote in April 2022, has accused then army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa of dismissing his government by colluding with current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his political allies. 

Khan came to power in a 2018 general election widely believed to have been rigged in his favor by the military — which both deny — but has since had a falling out with the army.