PAKISTAN’S former prime minister Imran Khan awoke today as an inmate in a high-security prison after a court handed him a three-year jail sentence for corruption.

The court ruled that Mr Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022 but remains the country’s leading opposition figure, had concealed assets after selling state gifts.

Police moved quickly to take the former cricket star from his home in the eastern city of Lahore to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, senior police officer Ali Nasir Rizvi said. 

Later on Saturday, he was transferred to a high-security prison notorious for its harsh conditions.

Critics say that efforts to put Mr Khan behind bars are politically motivated and have intensified ahead of general elections to be held later this year. 

This is the second time this year that Mr Khan has been detained as he has been slapped with more than 150 legal cases since his removal from office, including several on charges of corruption, terrorism and inciting people to violence over deadly protests after his arrest in May.

The prison sentence could bar Mr Khan from politics ahead of this year’s elections under a law that says people with a criminal conviction cannot hold or run for public office. 

His Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) said that it will challenge the decision.

Information Minister Maryam Aurangzeb denied that Mr Khan’s arrest had anything to do with upcoming elections and said the former prime minister had been given every opportunity to defend himself against the asset concealment charges.

“Instead Mr Khan used the time to delay the court proceedings and went back and forth to the high court and supreme court to halt this case,” she said.

PTI spokesman Rauf Hasan described the asset concealment trial as the “worst in history and tantamount to the murder of justice.”