May 9 riots were Imran, Faiz Hameed's 'joint venture to salvage' PTI founder: Asif

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif claimed on Thursday that the May 9 riots were a “joint venture” orchestrated by former ISI chief Lt Gen (retd) Faiz Hameed and PTI founder Imran Khan to “salvage” the latter.

His statement came hours after Faiz Hameed was handed 14-year imprisonment by a military court on Thursday.

In his post on X, the PML-N leader said that despite the conviction, Faiz Hameed still has full legal recourse available to him. “After a 15-month process, Faiz Hameed has been sentenced. He has the right to appeal before the army court of appeals, and afterwards before the army chief. Once the military judicial process is exhausted, he can approach the high court. The entire system of justice remains open to him,” he wrote.

He said that ex-PM Nawaz Sharif had been denied due process. “Nawaz Sharif’s name wasn’t even in the Panama Papers. Yet the case was taken to the Supreme Court," he said, adding that Sharif was disqualified and removed from the prime minister's office.

“This still did not satisfy the Supreme Court nor Faiz and [former army chief Gen Qamar Javed] Bajwa,” he claimed, as a Joint Investigation Team was constituted to cook up references, while Justice Ijaz-ul-Ahsan was made “custodian” of the case.

“Nawaz was handed 10-year sentence. But the Faiz-Bajwa project to install Imran Khan did not end there. Then came the imprisonment of his daughter, brother, nephew — the entire family. The process to eliminate Nawaz Sharif and his family was launched to secure Imran Khan,” he asserted.

He said that this period marked the beginning of Pakistan’s institutional and economic decline.