Pallade Veneta - Pakistan opposition leader given 10 years for Imran Khan protests

A statement from Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) said six members of parliament, a senator, and a provincial MP, were given 10-year sentences, a week after several others were also convicted.

Among them was Omar Ayub Khan, the opposition leader in the National Assembly, who did not attend the protests.

He was convicted at an anti-terrorism court in the eastern city of Faisalabad of abetting violence and conspiring to incite riots and arson.

"We are going to challenge this in the upper court," PTI chairman Gohar Ali Khan told reporters.

"Such verdicts are bad for democracy and the country altogether."

The party officials have been on bail during the trial and have not yet been taken to jail.

Nationwide protests that targeted sensitive military installations erupted on May 9 when Khan was briefly arrested in the capital, Islamabad.

Khan, who was prime minister between 2018 and 2022, has been in jail for nearly two years on charges he says are politically motivated.

His supporters and senior party leaders have also faced a severe crackdown, with thousands rounded up and Khan's name censored from television.

Sayed Zulfikar Bukhari, the London-based spokesman for PTI said the latest sentences were "a black day for demoracy".

"Convicting opposition leaders one after another is not a good omen for any democratic system, and it will seriously damage our already fragile democracy," he said.

L.Barone--PV