Pakistan courts sentence dozens from Khan's party
"Punjab Assembly's Opposition Leader Malik Ahmad Bhachar has been awarded a 10-year sentence," deputy minister of law Aqeel Malik said in a press conference.
Bhachar helms the opposition in Punjab, Pakistan's most populous and politically influential province. Following Tuesday's verdict, he pledged on social media "not to abandon" support for Khan.
A spokesman for Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party told AFP that Bhachar was not arrested until Tuesday evening.
In addition to Bhachar, a court in Sargodha also sentenced a sitting lawmaker, a former parliamentarian and 32 other supporters of PTI to 10 years each for attacking government buildings, Malik said.
Separately, a court in Lahore sentenced eight PTI members to 10 years in prison each for their involvement in riots in that city.
Those sentenced include former governor of Punjab province Omar Sarfraz Cheema, former provincial minister Yasmin Rashid, and Ejaz Ahmed Chaudhary, a sitting senator.
However, former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi was acquitted along with five others.
Khan, in office from 2018 to 2022, was initially arrested in May 2023, sparking nationwide unrest, some of which targeted military facilities.
Tuesday's sentences were handed down for attacks on police and civilian installations in Khan's home constituencies of Mianwali city and Lahore. Those accused of targeting military installations are facing separate trials in military courts.
PTI has vowed to challenge the verdicts in higher courts.
The prosecutions "expose a disturbing pattern of procedural impropriety, selective justice, and constitutional violations," said Sayed Zulfikar Bukhari, the London-based spokesman for PTI.
He called the trials "political spectacles... that are being rushed through at breakneck speed — day-to-day hearings, even late-night sessions till 10:40 PM on a Saturday."
Khan has been jailed since August 2023 on a slew of corruption charges his party says are politically motivated.
His supporters and senior party leaders have also faced a severe crackdown, with thousands rounded up and Khan's name censored from television.
Last year, a UN panel of experts found that Khan's detention "had no legal basis and appears to have been intended to disqualify him" from contesting elections.
Khan's popularity continues to undermine a shaky coalition government that kept PTI from power after the polls last year.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Local France
2 days ago
- Local France
French holiday camp accuses Vueling of discrimination against Jewish teens
"We are going to file a complaint for physical and psychological violence, as well as discrimination on the basis of religion," Club Kineret's lawyer Julie Jacob said, adding that those involved were mostly under 15 years old. The airline said it had asked the children to leave the Paris-bound plane in the Spanish city of Valencia due to their "disruptive behaviour", but parents condemned what some of them described as an "antisemitic act". In a statement, Vueling said some passengers "engaged in highly disruptive behaviour and adopted a very confrontational attitude, putting at risk the safe conduct" the flight to Paris-Orly airport. Advertisement "We categorically deny any suggestion that our crew's decision related to the religion of the passengers involved. This decision was taken solely to ensure the safety of all passengers," it said. "This group mishandled emergency equipment and actively disrupted the mandatory safety demonstration, repeatedly ignoring instructions from cabin crew," Vueling added. The crew requested the intervention of the Civil Guard police force, which "decided to disembark the group to prioritise the safety of the rest of the passengers", Vueling said. "Once at the terminal, the group's behaviour continued to be aggressive. Some individuals displayed a violent attitude," leading to the arrest of one person, Vueling said. The Civil Guard corroborated Vueling's statement about a group of 47 minors and their four supervisors, saying the arrested person "refused to get off the plane and obey the officers" but was later released. Parents said the teenagers were forced off the plane after one of them had sung a song in Hebrew. A mother whose 17-year-old son was on the flight told AFP on condition of anonymity that the group was returning home from a two-week summer camp. Advertisement The mother said that after the 21-year-old leader of the travelling group tried to stop the Civil Guard from taking the youngsters' phones, "she was tackled to the ground and forcibly taken away in front of the kids, who started screaming". She said she "could not see what could have justified" the incident, which affected children as young as 12 and 13. "They were disembarked like dogs," she said. Karine Lamy, the mother of one of the children, told Israeli television channel i24NEWS that it was "an anti-Semitic act against young children who did nothing".
Euronews
2 days ago
- Euronews
Ex-UK Labour leader Corbyn says he's starting a new left-wing party
The former leader of the UK Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn said on Thursday that he is forming a new left-leaning political party to advocate for "mass redistribution of wealth and power" and take on his former colleagues at the ballot box. The new political entity has a website — — but does not yet have a name. "It's your party," Corbyn said. "We're going to decide (a name) when we've had all the responses, and so far the response rate has been massive." Corbyn said he hoped the new party would have its inaugural conference in the autumn. Corbyn, 76, led Labour to election defeats in 2017 and 2019, but the veteran socialist campaigner remains popular with many grassroots supporters and the new party has the potential to further fragment British politics. The long-dominant Labour and Conservative parties now have challengers on both left and right, including the environmentalist Green Party and the hard-right Reform UK. Plans for a new party emerged earlier this month when lawmaker Zarah Sultana, who has been suspended from Labour for voting against the government, said she would 'co-lead the founding of a new party' with Corbyn. At the time, Corbyn did not confirm the news. On Thursday he denied the party launch had been messy, saying the process was "democratic, it's grassroots and it's open." A long-time supporter of Palestine and critic of Israel, Corbyn was suspended from Labour in 2020 after Britain's equalities watchdog found anti-Jewish prejudice had been allowed to spread within Labour while he was leader. He was suspended after failing to fully accept the findings, claiming opponents had exaggerated the scale of antisemitism in Labour for "political reasons." Corbyn was re-elected to Parliament last year as an independent. Prime Minister Keir Starmer succeeded Corbyn as Labour leader in 2020 and dragged the party back toward the political centre ground. He dropped Corbyn's opposition to Britain's nuclear weapons, strongly backed sending weapons to Ukraine and stressed the party's commitment to balancing the books. Starmer won a landslide election victory a year ago, but has struggled to maintain unity among Labour lawmakers as the government struggles to get a sluggish economy growing and invest in overstretched public services. He has been forced into a series of U-turns by his own lawmakers, including one on welfare reform that left his authority severely dented.
France 24
2 days ago
- France 24
Zelensky approves new bill restoring 'independence' of anti-corruption bodies after protests
Protesters hold placards during a demonstration against a law that removes the independence of two key anti-corruption bodies in downtown Kyiv on July 23, 2025. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky approved draft legislation on Thursday that he said would restore the independence of the country's anti-corruption agencies, reversing course after an outburst of public criticism. Measures enacted earlier this week that established greater control by the prosecutor general, a political appointee, over the two bodies had fuelled rare wartime protests and had thrown Kyiv's EU bid into question. Zelensky said on X he had approved the draft for submission to parliament later in the day. To display this content from X (Twitter), you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. Accept Manage my choices "It is important that we are maintaining unity. It is important that we are preserving independence. It is important that we respect the position of all Ukrainians," he said. Zelensky, whose image as a tireless leader of the three-year-old war against Russia's invasion has been tarnished by the controversy, said the text of the new bill is "well-balanced". He did not give further details, saying only that it "guarantees real strengthening of Ukraine's law enforcement system, independence of anti-corruption agencies, and reliable any Russian influence". Ukraine's Zelensky tries to limit backlash over law curbing anti-graft agencies To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. Accept Manage my choices One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Try again © France 24 04:49 On Monday, security forces arrested two anti-corruption officials on suspicion of ties to Russia and launched sweeping searches of other employees. Critics had decried the measures putting a Zelensky-appointed prosecutor in control over the anti-corruption agencies, saying they went too far and looked like political pressure against the agencies. Opposition lawmakers had collected enough signatures to register their own legislation to revoke the restrictive measures, which had been fast-tracked with help from Zelensky's ruling party. It was not immediately clear how soon parliament, which was meant to start its summer holiday this week, would consider either bill. The European officials expressed strong criticism over changes curbing the authority of the anti-corruption bodies and on Thursday welcomed an earlier pledge by Zelensky to retain their independence. (FRANCE 24 with Reuters)
