PAKISTANI authorities today arrested former prime minister Imran Khan as he appeared in a court in the capital, Islamabad, to face corruption charges, police and officials from his party said.

The arrest, which marked a dramatic escalation on Pakistan’s political scene, drew nationwide condemnation from the supporters of the popular opposition leader and former cricket star.

Mr Khan was dragged outside the Islamabad High Court and pushed into a police vehicle by agents from the National Accountability Bureau, according to Fawad Chaudhry, a senior official with Mr Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party.

Mr Chaudhry denounced the arrest as “an abduction.”

Pakistan’s independent GEO TV broadcast images of the 72-year-old Mr Khan being pulled by security forces towards an armoured vehicle, which took him away.

Mr Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022. He has claimed his removal was illegal and a Western conspiracy, and has campaigned against the government of his successor, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, demanding early elections.

Mr Khan’s party immediately complained to the Islamabad High Court, which requested a police report explaining the charges for the arrest.

Officials from the anti-corruption body said that Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau had issued arrest warrants for Mr Khan last week in a separate case, for which he had not obtained bail — something that would protect him from arrest under the country’s laws. 

But Raoof Hasan, another leader from Mr Khan's party, told Al Jazeera English television: “We are completely in the dark. He was virtually abducted from the court of law.”

Mr Khan has claimed that the cases, which include terrorism charges, are a plot by Mr Sharif’s government to discredit him.

But after Mr Khan’s arrest, the prime minister tweeted: “Let this be abundantly clear that you, as former prime minister, currently on trial for corruption, are claiming legitimacy to overturn the legal and political system.”