On May 12, former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was let out of prison on bail. After four days of chaos in Pakistan — marked by violent protests and the inevitable internet shutdown — the country’s Supreme Court granted Khan two weeks of respite.

Khan, who became prime minister in 2018, was a former superstar cricketer known for his dashing good looks and his complicated love life. He ran for office, though, as a religious conservative, eager to clean up corruption in Pakistan. He now faces corruption charges himself and was arrested for allegedly receiving free land as a bribe from a Pakistani real estate tycoon. 

Ousted from office in April 2022, Khan remained a powerful opposition figure with a large and fervent support base. In November, just months after he had lost a parliamentary vote of no-confidence, Khan was shot while leading a protest rally to the Pakistani capital Islamabad. 

He was in a wheelchair when he was arrested on May 9, 2023 by a paramilitary force on the steps of the Islamabad High Court, where he was appearing on a separate matter. After Khan’s release on bail, he blamed the Pakistani army chief for his arrest, claiming he had a personal vendetta against him. Khan’s supporters turned much of their fury, after his arrest, on the army. In Pakistan’s 75-year history as an independent nation, it is unlikely that the army, a venerated and feared institution, has ever been confronted with such a show of public disgust. One protester was interviewed holding peacocks he had taken from the lavish house of an army officer in the northeastern city of Lahore. Army officers, the protestor said, were living in grand style on the “people’s money.”