Pakistani opposition leader and nearly 200 Imran Khan supporters sentenced over 2023 riots

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) – A court in eastern Pakistan on Thursday sentenced an opposition leader and nearly 200 supporters of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan to 10 years in prison each over the 2023 riots that erupted over Khan’s arrest, officials said.

The court announced the verdict against 196 people, including opposition leader Omar Ayub, in three separate cases heard in the city of Faisalabad in Punjab province. The charges stemmed from the May 9, 2023 violence that spread nationwide after Khan’s arrest.

The violence subsided only after Khan was released on the orders of Pakistan’s Supreme Court. However, a trial court later convicted him in August 2023, and he has not appeared in public since. Some of his supporters have since been tried and sentenced by military courts.

Among those convicted by the court Thursday were at least six members of the National Assembly and a senator from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI.

“They were accused of participating in attacks on military officers, government buildings and vehicles during the 2023 riots”, a defense lawyer Changaiz Kakar said.

He said it was the first time that political activists have been convicted and sentenced in such large numbers, and that appeals would be filed against these convictions and sentences.

Gohar Ali Khan, chairman of PTI, denounced the latest convictions, saying Ayub and others were sentenced in “baseless” cases. He said the verdicts came just ahead of planned rallies to mark the third anniversary of Khan’s conviction in multiple cases.

Khan was ousted from power in 2022 through a no-confidence vote led by current Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif. Khan after his ouster had accused the military and his political rival Sharif of ousting him under a U.S. plot, the charges which they denied.