Ex-ISI chief Hameed responsible for Nawaz Sharif's 2017 ouster: Pak Defence Minister

Islamabad, Dec 13 (PTI) Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Saturday claimed that convicted ex-spymaster Faiz Hameed was responsible for the ouster of former premier Nawaz Sharif in 2017.

Addressing a press conference in Sialkot two days after Hameed, the former chief of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was sentenced to a 14-year jail term by a military tribunal, Asif said that more charges against him were to come soon.

“A former head of ISI has been convicted in a trial that ran for 15 months; there are still other charges on which legal proceedings will be initiated soon,” Asif was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper.

The defence minister assailed the former spymaster, claiming that Nawaz was ousted through a “conspiracy”.

“The removal of Nawaz, the cases lodged against him, the allegations, and Imran (Khan)'s coming into power, this whole project was enacted under the supervision of Faiz Hameed,” the defence minister claimed.

Nawaz, 75, the only Pakistani politician who became the prime minister of the coup-prone country for a record three times, suffered a heavy blow to his career when a Supreme Court ruling ousted him from power in July 2017.

He led the country’s most powerful political family and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party for more than three decades.

His younger brother Shehbaz Sharif is the prime minister while his daughter Maryam Nawaz is chief minister of Punjab province.

Asif said that Hameed, along with his “partner” Imran Khan, was responsible for causing “significant damage” to the country.

Khan, the 73-year-old former prime minister, has been jailed at the high-security Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi since August 2023 in multiple cases.

Asif also said that Hameed was “in charge of project Imran”, highlighting the 2018 general elections, which Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party won, and the former cricketer-turned-politician served as the prime minister of Pakistan from August 2018 to April 2022.

“Faiz was the most important part of that government,” the minister said and added that the ex-spymaster facilitated the “imprisonment of opponents” during the tenure of Khan's PTI party.

“He used to threaten and imprison political opponents,” he said, adding that Hameed’s main beneficiary was Imran.

The minister alleged that “bringing Imran into power, lodging cases against Nawaz, exiling him, imprisoning his family and his party leaders and workers,” was orchestrated by Hameed.

He went on to say that the former ISI chief “was given the opportunity to govern Pakistan through Imran”, and added that during the ex-spymaster’s tenure, the institution used to “dictate” legislation to parliament.

“Decisions for the country’s future used to be made in the backyard of the prime minister’s house,” he said.

He noted that after Hameed’s transfer, his “project” started to slowly “unravel”.

Asif said that as a corps commander, Hameed continued to facilitate Imran, and added that the “conspirators attempting to prop up Imran today and bring him back to power, all these seeds were sown by Faiz.” “These two personalities cannot be separated,” he said.

Asif said, "If the Faiz-Imran nexus still existed, perhaps there would not have been a need for" a military conflict with India as "they would have ensured the country’s destruction from the inside." India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians.  The strikes triggered four days of intense clashes that ended with an understanding on stopping the military actions on May 10. PTI SH GRS  GRS GRS