Pakistan: Imran Khan acquitted in police attack case

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan

A Pakistani court on Thursday acquitted the country’s key opposition leader Imran Khan in a case related to "torture" on a senior police officer during his party’s sit-in outside parliament in Islamabad in 2014, court records and local media reported.

Khan, a former cricket hero, was allegedly involved in an attack on the then police chief of the capital, Ismatullah Junejo, by angry protesters who wanted to march towards parliament.

Several police officers, including Junejo, were injured in the attack.

Khan, whose right-wing Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) has emerged as the country’s second largest political party, and a key contender for the next government, had always maintained his innocence terming the case a “political victimization”.

The judge of the anti-terrorist court Islamabad exonerated the cricketer-turned-politician for “lack of evidence”, according to the court record.

Khan’s PTI, and its allies had besieged the parliament for nearly four months in 2014 to push the government of former premier Nawaz Sharif in launching an investigation into alleged rigging in the 2013 elections.