The Pakistani military announced on Monday that it had arrested the former head of its top intelligence agency, Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, and initiated court-martial proceedings against the retired general on charges of corruption and political meddling, officials said.
His arrest is the first time in Pakistan’s history that a current or former chief of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence, or I.S.I., has faced court-martial proceedings. It is widely seen as part of the latest crackdown on allies of the imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who handpicked General Hameed to serve as spy chief during his tenure.
A news release from the Inter-Services Public Relations, or I.S.P.R., the military’s media wing, said Monday that disciplinary action has been taken against General Hameed under the Pakistan Army Act and that it relates to a 2017 scandal involving a private housing development in Islamabad. Officials have accused General Hameed and his brother of attempting to acquire ownership of the housing development by arresting and blackmailing its owner, according to court proceedings.
Officials also accused General Hameed of violating the Pakistan Army Act after retiring in 2022, according to the news release, though it did not specify the exact charges. The act prohibits officials from engaging in political activities for two years after retirement.
The Inter-Services Intelligence is one of Pakistan’s most potent and influential institutions, and General Hameed was once a symbol of unbending, daunting power in Pakistan, whose very public ambitions helped spawn the political crisis that has gripped Pakistan over the past two years.
For years at the spy agency, General Hameed maneuvered alongside Mr. Khan to become army chief — perhaps the most powerful position in Pakistan, where the military acts as the invisible hand guiding the country’s politics. Mr. Khan’s efforts to promote him to that role after he became prime minister in 2018 developed into a major point of friction between him and the military, eventually leading to Mr. Khan’s ouster in 2022.
The role of army chief in Pakistan has been held by Lt. Gen. Syed Asim Munir since November 2022.
The allegations of corruption and political meddling lodged against General Hameed sound familiar in Pakistan, where powerful military leaders influence foreign policy and domestic politics, prop up their favorite politicians and crush any opposition in their way.
But typically, the generals themselves have escaped accountability for their transgressions or received only a mild reprimand. General Hameed’s arrest stands apart — and has potentially far-reaching consequences, domestically and internationally, analysts say.
“The arrest and possible trial of a former spy chief is unusual for Pakistan,” said Husain Haqqani, a former ambassador of Pakistan to the U.S. and now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington.
“Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed celebrated the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan and was identified with jihadi militant operations. This could be the beginning of the Pakistani military’s break from policies associated with him,” Mr. Haqqani said.
In the initial years after the 9/11 attacks, there was cooperation between Pakistan’s spy agency and Washington, but by 2007, American officials were accusing the spy agency of supporting the Taliban insurgency inside Afghanistan.
The arrest also highlights the political turmoil that has gripped Pakistan for the past two years since Mr. Khan was removed from office by Parliament in a vote of no confidence.
In the years since, the military establishment has waged a countrywide crackdown on Mr. Khan and his supporters, who took to the streets in droves to show their support for him. Mr. Khan was arrested late last year on what he calls political charges. He remains in prison.
General Hameed was widely understood to be Mr. Khan’s closest ally within the military, who continued after retirement to provide support and advice to Mr. Khan in the hopes of helping him make good with military leaders and return to office, analysts say.
Analysts and government officials say the arrest sends a two-pronged message: It is a cautionary signal to senior military officers and also as a warning to Mr. Khan.
“It is, of course, aimed at Imran Khan and his political party, who have greatly benefited from General Hameed before and after his retirement,” said Murtaza Solangi, a former information minister and political analyst.
“But more than that, it is a clear and powerful message from the emboldened and strengthened Army Chief General Syed Asim Munir to both serving and retired personnel that any attempt to weaken and divide the military will not be tolerated,” Mr. Solangi added.
During General Hameed’s tenure as spy chief, many politicians accused him of employing brute force and heavy-handed tactics to please his political and military bosses and to further his own personal ambitions. Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif publicly claimed that General Hameed, along with a group of Supreme Court judges and another military general, were behind his removal from power in 2017.
In 2017, Hameed led the wing of the spy agency concerned with domestic issues, a division often criticized for alleged interference in politics. He was perceived as an enforcer for then-Army Chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, with accusations that the military played a role in skewing the 2018 elections in favor of Mr. Khan.
In 2019, General Hameed was appointed chief of the spy agency, succeeding General Munir, who was abruptly removed from the post by Mr. Khan. In many ways, the current political turmoil in the country is also a result of the feud among these three figures.
As the spy agency’s chief, General Hameed soon became a close ally of Mr. Khan and used his position to intimidate and arrest the prime minister’s political opponents on what they said were trumped-up charges. Opposition politicians viewed him as running government affairs from behind the scenes while serving as spy chief. (Mr. Khan now makes similar accusations against the current military leadership.)
General Hameed was also seen as a supporter of the Afghan Taliban, having backed their takeover of Kabul after the American withdrawal in August 2021, and he and Mr. Khan approved the policy of repatriating Pakistani Taliban militants from Afghanistan back to Pakistan, which critics say has resulted in the return of militancy in the country.
In October 2021, General Bajwa removed General Hameed as spy chief, as differences between them grew and posted him as a corps commander in Peshawar.
Mr. Khan opposed the move before eventually agreeing to it. Mr. Khan has publicly acknowledged that he wanted to retain General Hameed as the spy agency’s chief because of the situation in Afghanistan.
