When he travelled from Lahore to Islamabad to appear before the Islamabad High Court on May 9th, Imran Khan may have been expecting an uneventful day in court. It was not to be. Thirteen months after he was ousted as Pakistan’s prime minister in a vote of no confidence, Mr Khan was bundled off the court’s premises and into a car by paramilitary toughs and deposited in the custody of the country’s anti-corruption bureau. Rather than contest early elections, which he has been demanding for months, Mr Khan may have to watch general elections scheduled for later this year unfold from a jail cell—provided they are held at all.The stated reason for Mr Khan’s arrest is alleged graft. On May 10th, before being taken back into judicial custody, he was charged with and pleaded not guilty to corruption in connection with a land deal. Yet the arrest appears more likely to be related to his escalating quarrel with Pakistan’s armed forces. On May 6th Mr Khan claimed at a public rally that Major-General Faisal Naseer of the army’s intelligence service was plotting to murder him. Mr Khan had earlier blamed Shehbaz Sharif, who replaced him as prime minister, and other senior officials for an attempt on his life in November, when he was shot in the leg.
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