Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in an interview with Fox News Digital continued to proclaim his innocence against an avalanche of cases brought against him for various charges, just days before Pakistan’s election commission issued a non-bailable warrant for his arrest.
“I have no doubt that it’s a question of time, whether it’s on Monday or some other day next week. I’m convinced they’re going to put me in jail because every day I have more cases against me,” Khan said last week during a video interview.
“I think I’ve broken a world record that I have now 180 cases — and increasing by the day — and, unfortunately, right now, we are facing the law of the jungle,” he insisted. “This is unprecedented.”
Khan, a former cricket player of international renown and fame, won office in Pakistan’s parliament in 2002 and became prime minister in 2018. Then he started to face numerous charges from different agencies in Pakistan for a range of crimes, but most directly charges on corruption and terrorism.
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Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan gestures as he speaks with Reuters during an interview in Lahore, Pakistan, March 17, 2023. ( REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro)
Pakistan passed its first and only no-confidence vote against a sitting prime minister last year to remove Khan from power. The move proved highly unpopular among Khan’s many supporters, leading at times to clashes between police and the general population.
Government officials earlier this year alleged Khan and his wife had received land worth millions of dollars as bribes, as well as an antique watch, a gold pen, a ring and cufflinks he received as gifts while prime minister then allegedly sold for personal profit, The Guardian reported.
Police arrested Khan and held him at a police facility in Islamabad, where supporters gathered around in protest, occasionally clashing with the police. The tensions hit a new height when the supporters then attacked several military assets in protest over his arrest, vandalizing an air base, several garrisons and the house of a general. Police released him on bail shortly after due to a ruling from the country’s supreme court.
Police this week issued a non-bailable arrest warrant for Khan regarding a contempt case, broadcaster Ary News reported Tuesday. The case relates to “intemperate” language against the election commission and the chief election commissioner.
Supporters of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan throw stones toward police during a protest against Khan’s arrest in Peshawar, Pakistan, May 10, 2023. (REUTERS/Fayaz Aziz)
Khan, who also survived an assassination attempt in late 2022, claimed his current crisis resulted from a disagreement with his foreign policy, namely that other parties — either the U.S. government or his country’s own military — were not happy with how he chose to align Pakistan in the international community.
“Definitely, ex-army chief [Qamar Javed Bajwa] … engineered the whole thing,” Khan alleged, claiming Bajwa used intelligence agencies to divide Khan’s party and keep them distant from his allies. He said the military wields disproportionate power in the country, and that while he insists he received no help from the military when he ran for office, the army “did not oppose me.”
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He further alleged that ex-Pakistani ambassador Husain Haqqani lobbied the U.S. government to help remove Khan from power because he was “anti-American.”
“He actually had a lobbyist who was paid by my government without my knowledge, was lobbying in the U.S. to see how anti-American Imran Khan was,” he said. “That was the U.S. interference,” which he alleged happened March 6, 2022, and that he read a cipher that insisted that if Khan remained in power, Pakistan would face “consequences.”
Supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan gather outside his home in Lahore, Pakistan, March 19, 2023. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
“The vote of no confidence was taken the next day,” he said. Khan is seemingly no longer accusing the U.S. of being the main culprit for his demise. “We now realized it was engineered by our army chief, rather than Washington, that’s what we think.”
The U.S. State Department told Fox News Digital “there is no truth to these allegations,” stressing that the department supports “the peaceful upholding of democratic, constitutional and legal principles.”
“The United States values our long-standing cooperation with Pakistan and has always viewed a prosperous and democratic Pakistan as critical to U.S. interests. That remains unchanged,” a State Department spokesperson said.
“We do not let propaganda, misinformation and disinformation get in the way of any bilateral relationship, including our valued partnership with Pakistan,” the spokesperson added. “The United States does not have a position on one political candidate or party versus another.”
Pakistani security forces intervene with supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf who gathered outside his home to prevent his possible arrest in Lahore, Pakistan, March 15, 2023. (Rana Irfan Ali/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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Khan acknowledged he pursued “nonaligned” foreign policy with India and trade with China and Russia despite the tensions and international condemnation Moscow faced for its invasion of Ukraine. Khan famously met with Putin just as the invasion commenced, and Pakistan abstained during a United Nations vote for a draft resolution to condemn Russia for the attack.
“My idea was not to be anti any government: My idea was that my concern should be the people elected me to help them get out of poverty,” Khan explained. He noted that his country assisted the U.S. with its “jihad” against the Soviets in the 1980s and then after the attack on 9/11 to help with the war on terror.
“Both these conflicts took a heavy toll on Pakistan,” he said. “The ’80s one left 5 million refugees in Pakistan: Kalashnikovs, drugs flowing in, militant groups … and we suffered from all that the consequences.
Supporters of Pakistan’s main opposition Tehreek-e-Insaf party listen to a speech by their leader Imran Khan at a rally in Lahore, Pakistan Oct. 29 2022. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
“Then, after 9/11, we joined the U.S. war on terror [and] 80,000 Pakistanis died,” he continued. “They were killed in that war, and then over $100 billion was lost to the economy. So, my concern was the 100 million vulnerable people of Pakistan, and the best ways to stay out of conflicts — to be partners in peace.”
Khan highlighted Pakistan’s role in the Doha talks, which looked to broker a deal with the Taliban before their rout of the Afghanistan government and military in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from the country.
He lamented that he never understood why the U.S. went to Afghanistan in the first place, provoking a conflict in a country that historically “did not accept foreign invaders.”
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“If the target was Usama bin Laden, then after Usama bin Laden was taken out, they should have left, or … I never understood the aims of the venture by the U.S.,” he added. “I never understood that. What did they want to achieve from it if it was to install democracy there?
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party activists and supporters of former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran shout slogans next to a fire as they block a road during a protest against the arrest of their leader in Karachi May 9, 2023. (Asif Hassan/AFP via Getty Images)
“Well, it wasn’t going to happen through the barrel of a gun,” he mused. “If it was to liberate the Afghan women … never in human history has another country come to liberate someone’s women.
“In the end, I didn’t think Joe Biden had much option left,” Khan stated. “I mean, they had to withdraw from Afghanistan some time or the other. The only problem was the way the withdrawal took place,” adding that he didn’t blame President Biden for not anticipating former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani “would take off in the middle of the night.”
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“The moment he left the country, the whole army collapsed,” Khan said, noting that President Donald Trump had thought the Afghanistan government would last at least six months after the withdrawal. “No one expected the way it would collapse. … I think President Biden actually got a lot of flak.”
The Pakistani Embassy did not respond to a request for comment regarding allegations made throughout the interview by Imran Khan.
Reuters contributed to this report.