Imran Khan calls for public trial of former ISI chief

Islamabad: Jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday demanded a public trial of former Pakistani intelligence chief Lt. General (retd.) Faiz Hameed if his links to the May 9 violence were established, saying it would then be “not an internal military matter.”

These remarks came just two days after Khan on Monday expressed fears that authorities would force the arrested former spy chief to testify against him (Khan) as a key witness in the May 9, 2023 riots.

After Khan was arrested in an accountability drive last year, hundreds of thousands of his supporters and workers of his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) vandalised a dozen military installations, including Jinnah House (house of the Lahore Corps Commander), Mianwali Air Force Base and the ISI building in Faisalabad on May 9.

The Army Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi was also attacked by the mob for the first time.

The arrest of Hameed, the former chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was announced by the military last week.

During an informal conversation with reporters in Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, where he has been detained since last year, Khan said if Hameed “was indeed the mastermind of the May 9 conspiracy, then the trial must be held in public,” adding that the incident was a local issue and not a matter of national security.

Earlier, in a similar informal conversation with the media shortly after Hameed's arrest, Khan had stated that it was an internal army matter.

“They will make Faiz Hameed a key witness against me,” he told reporters, adding, “The army chief should facilitate a transparent trial against Faiz Hameed.” Hameed, who was director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from 2019 to 2021 when Khan was prime minister, was arrested after responding to a private real estate developer's complaint of alleged abuse of office.

He denied that he had had any connection with the former intelligence chief since he retired in November 2022. “General Faiz became insignificant after his retirement. How could he be of any use to me?” Khan asked, rejecting the notion that he had been in touch with the former ISI chief.

The former prime minister also said he knew who ordered “my arrest” and that this person was “the number one and the Badshah and the super king”. However, he did not name anyone.

Khan also expressed concern that a military trial against him would damage Pakistan's global image and reiterated his belief that the matter should be resolved in a civilian court and not a military court since it involves a civilian leader and not internal army operations.

The former ISI chief was arrested following a complaint filed by a real estate developer who accused him of abuse of office.