Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan’s confrontation with the all-powerful military-intelligence establishment that brought him and his 27-year-old Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) to power in 2018 has captured the headlines for its roiling drama and brinkmanship since his ouster from power in April 2022. Now out on bail for two weeks on over 100 corruption cases against him, Mr Khan has suggested that his fate lies in assassination — he claims army- and ISI-linked actors made an attempt on his life in November 2022 — exile, or a 10-year incarceration (which could end in execution). At least two of his predecessors met such ends. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who initially served as minister in the Ayub Khan dictatorship, was arrested after a coup by Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, then chief of army staff, and subsequently hanged in 1979. His daughter Benazir Bhutto, returning from self-exile to fight election in 2007, was shot dead at a political rally soon after her retur