The announcement of court martial proceedings against Lt.-Gen. Faiz Hameed, the former head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has brought former Prime Minister Imran Khan closer to a decisive showdown against the all-powerful military establishment.
Khan, in jail now for over a year, has expressed concerns over Hameed’s fate being linked to him. Hameed was the central figure in propelling Khan, responsible for the political engineering of the polls that brought the former premier to power in 2018. Meanwhile, Khan’s unmatched popularity, despite a massively rigged election this year, has only extended the ongoing political trial at the hands of the military establishment. Khan now faces the prospect of being tried in a military court.
Hameed’s ongoing trial is over misconduct related to a private housing scheme. But given the colossal financial misappropriation, and nationwide land usurpation, linked to the Pakistan Army, the unprecedented move to court martial the former spymaster naturally has the interests of the power center at stake. The likeliest scenario would be invoking charges against both Hameed and Khan over the riots of May 9, 2023, which were aimed at military installations. Such charges carry severe penalties as per the Army Act, which could engulf the jailed ex-premier as well.
While Khan is now distancing himself from Hameed, the two have had a symbiotic relationship for years. “Imran Khan needed Faiz Hameed to become the prime minister, and Faiz Hameed needed Imran Khan to become the army chief,” a senior intelligence officer told The Diplomat. “For this, they have divided the nation and its institutions.”
Military insiders further reveal that a division had indeed crept up inside the Pakistan Army ranks in the lead up to the appointment of the army chief in 2022, with Hameed being one of the leading contenders. Those close to the military leadership at the time also claim that then-Army Chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa was seeking another extension and did not want his eventual successor, current Army Chief Gen. Asim Munir, to take command.
“These divisions [in the army leadership] exist based on personal inclinations. They are inevitable because the military has been so heavily involved in politics since the inception of the country. That needs to change,” said former military commander Lt.-Gen. Talat Masood.
Senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Senator Irfan Siddiqui claims that it was the party president and former premier Nawaz Sharif who pushed for Munir’s ascension as the chief of army staff. This signals a reversal of the military leadership’s machinations, which Sharif has thrice been at the receiving end of, most recently in 2017.
With the name of the former Chief Justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar also coming up in connection with Hameed and Khan’s maneuvers, the narrative being built by the current civil and military leadership is that those being targeted were anomalies in their respective institutions. The move to court martial a former spymaster, who was in the running to head the army only a couple of years ago, is targeted at reaffirming this assertion.
This is also designed to send a message to dissenters within the military ranks. “Some army officers might have had their preferences, some might have admired Imran Khan as a political leader, but when it comes to the leadership of the military institution, the army chief remains undisputed,” maintained Masood.
As is the norm, these overt displays of military-led unity have led to a nationwide crackdown against dissent, amid an explosion of anti-army sentiment. From action against the members and workers of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), to abductions targeting dissidents, to internet policymaking designed to silence critique, the military leadership has sought to enforce totalitarian control over the country. And much of the focus of the authoritarian policymaking has been Imran Khan.
In addition to an array of cases against him, and the talks of a potential trial in military court, Khan is also faced with turmoil within his own party. Many of the senior PTI members were forced to leave, while those still with the party are faced with continued duress, hindering his calls to organize protests against the rulers.
“There is disharmony and conflict within the PTI ranks, and there is immense pressure on them from the deep state as well. And whichever party has faced such a pressure in Pakistan, it has always struggled to function,” former Punjab chief minister and political scientist Hasan Askari Rizvi, the author of “The Military and Politics in Pakistan,” told The Diplomat.
Accordingly, Khan has himself felt the heat of the state’s actions, in turn intermittently calling for talks with the army chief. His outreach remains exclusively to the army, while the PTI founder maintains his position against his civilian opponents. Apparently neither Khan nor those at the helm of an unpopular government is invested in upholding democracy in the country.
However, PTI insiders say that the masses’ discontent with the current rulers – to whom they attribute the theft of the people’s mandate and the ongoing economic turmoil – has made Khan confident that the PML-N government might be sent packing soon. They cite this belief as the reason behind Khan’s overtures to the military leadership.
“There are signs of flexibility, especially about talks [with the army]. Sometimes the [anti-establishment] statements are less compared to the past, then sometimes one sees a return to the previous position. There remains inconsistency in his narrative,” said Rizvi.
Khan has called for due action against Gen. Faiz Hameed and the perpetrators of May 9 riots, suggesting that he is happy to echo the current military leadership’s narrative if allowed to come back to power. But at the same time, PTI insiders also reaffirm that the party founder is bracing for all possible actions against him and planning accordingly. This includes banking on his overseas reputation, and the potential uproar over any grave moves against him, as exemplified by Khan’s bid to contest the Oxford University chancellor election from jail.
“The army leadership knows that they cannot get rid of him that easily. The people are behind him and he will not go away that easily. Imran Khan deciding to stay in jail, instead of taking the easy way out, is itself the very definition of anti-establishment,” said Javed Hashmi, former president of the PTI.
In spite of the fact that Khan benefited from the same military-led political engineering that he is now the victim of, and despite his recent moves toward reconciliation with the army leadership, he remains in a unique position to enforce the will of the people by finding a way to return to the helm of government.
However, the power corridors that he has to cross require him to return to the subservient role that he adopted in order to win his first stint in office. That’s precisely why the army leadership is hanging the sword of a military court trial over his head. And Hashmi, who left the PTI over Khan’s complicity in the military’s dismissal of Nawaz Sharif, now wants the jailed ex-premier to make the most of this opportunity to right his own wrongs.
“I had advised Imran Khan not to come to power with the backing of the military 10 years ago, and today I would advise him not to strike a deal with them,” said Hashmi. “If he compromises, then the people of Pakistan, who are behind him, will not forgive him. Imran Khan’s actual trial is in the people’s court.”