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The court ordered Mr Khan’s immediate release. His lawyers had argued that his detention from court premises in Islamabad on Tuesday was unlawful.

At least 10 people have been killed and 2,000 arrested as violent protests have swept the country since he was held.

Tuesday’s arrest escalated growing tensions between him and the military.

The opposition leader, ousted in a confidence vote in April last year, was brought to court on the orders of Pakistan’s top judge.

As Mr Khan arrived in court, media ran through the corridors to capture his first public appearance since he was arrested.

Surrounded by security, Mr Khan said nothing as he walked to the wood-panelled courtroom which was filled with officials from his party and journalists.

Mr Khan stood surrounded by his lawyers in front of the three Supreme Court judges as they told him that because of the way he had been arrested on Tuesday – inside a court complex, conducting biometric tests – the arrest was invalid.

Footage of his arrest showed paramilitary forces seizing Mr Khan, who was injured in a gun attack last year, and dragging him from inside court premises, before whisking him away in an armoured vehicle.

“Your arrest was invalid so the whole process needs to be backtracked,” Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial told Mr Khan. He would now be under the protection of the Supreme Court.

It was then Mr Khan’s turn to speak, defiant and indignant at the way he had been arrested.

The former cricketer told the judges he’d been kidnapped from the High Court on Tuesday and “hit with sticks”. He was reminded several times by the judges that others had experienced worse treatment.

There was no immediate response from the security forces to the allegation.

His Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party says the cases against him are politically motivated. The arrest enraged his supporters – the past 48 hours have seen widespread violence and rare attacks on state and military facilities.

Seven senior PTI leaders are among those arrested. They include former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who police say “incited violence”. In a statement Mr Qureshi denied this and urged supporters to continue with peaceful protests.

Mr Khan has been kept at a police guesthouse in the capital since Tuesday, which was turned into a makeshift court on Wednesday where a judge formally charged him with corruption for the first time in the dozens of cases he faces. He pleaded not guilty.

Conviction would disqualify the former international cricket star – prime minister from 2018-2022 – from standing for office, possibly for life. Elections are due later this year.

Former Pakistani ambassador Maleeha Lodhi told the BBC she thought the court’s decision would help to defuse the anger of Mr Khan’s supporters.

“The last couple of days have seen extraordinary violence by protesters who are supporters of Imran Khan, who are obviously enraged by the manner in which he was arrested,” she said.

“There is still uncertainty, but hopefully the situation will not return to the kind of violent scenes that we have seen.”

Although Mr Khan asked repeatedly to be allowed to stay at his home, the court determined that because of the security situation he would have to remain at the police guesthouse. However the judges repeatedly emphasised that he would be allowed to have whoever he chooses as a guest.

When the proceedings finished, Mr Khan sat within the court for 15 minutes taking questions from the media. He said he had not known that people had been killed during the protests or that senior members of his party had been arrested.

He told the BBC that when he was arrested he had been hit on the head and was bleeding and that when those images had circulated around the world the reaction by his supporters was not surprising.

When asked whether he would now ask his supporters to stop violent protests he said that he had already made his statement, saying he had always called for protests to be peaceful.

Supporters of Mr Khan welcomed the court’s decision. “Imran Khan’s release proves we knew the truth,” one man, who had spent the past few days gathered outside the PTI leader’s residence in Lahore, told the BBC.

Another said the verdict had “revived our hope in the nation”.

Many analysts believe Mr Khan’s election win in 2018 happened with the help of the military, which both parties denied. But he later fell out with the powerful army. After a series of defections, and amid mounting economic crisis, he lost his majority in parliament.

Since being ousted less than four years into his term, he has become one of the military’s most vocal critics, and analysts say the army’s popularity has fallen.

In November 2022, Mr Khan was shot in the leg while leading a protest march. He has accused a senior intelligence officials of carrying out the attack – which the military has strongly denied.

A day before his arrest, the military warned him against making “baseless allegations” after he again accused a senior officer of plotting to kill him.

Observers see the country facing an unprecedented series of crises – given endless political turmoil, the economy on a cliff edge and mounting violence by Islamist militants eroding confidence in the security forces.

Mr Ince had been under increasing pressure for splitting the opposition vote, when they have their biggest chance yet of removing Recep Tayyip Erdogan from power.

“I’m withdrawing my candidacy,” he told reporters.

He cited fake sex pictures as one of his reasons for pulling out.

He complained that for 45 days he had been slandered and suffered character assassination, and Turkish authorities had failed to protect his reputation.

“Fake invoices, fake videos, pictures… they took a video from an Israeli porn website and added my face there,” he said.

“Unfortunately some people in Turkey shared those for the sake of being in so-called opposition.”

But he also said he did not want to be blamed by the alliance of opposition parties if they lost the presidential vote.

Mr Ince’s decision to pull out gives President Erdogan’s biggest rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a big boost, and Turkey’s main stock market soared on the news.

Mr Erdogan has led his country for more than 20 years, but Turkey is grappling with an inflation rate of 44%.

The has also been criticised for failings in the response to a double earthquake in February that killed more than 50,000 people in 11 provinces.

Mr Kilicdaroglu, a soft-spoken man of 74, heads an alliance of six opposition parties and latest polls give him 49% of the vote.

Although Mr Ince is polling only a small share of the vote, opposition supporters hope his withdrawal might be enough to tip Mr Kilicdaroglu over the 50% needed to win the election outright on Sunday.

If no candidate secures 50%, the vote goes to a run-off two weeks later.

Mr Ince, 59, won 30% of the vote for the main opposition Republican People’s party five years ago, but he left the party the following year.

The economy grew by 0.1% between January and March the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

The figure comes a day after the Bank of England said it was more optimistic about prospects for the UK and that the economy would avoid recession.

The Bank also increased interest rates to 4.5% from 4.25%.

The rate rise was part of the Bank’s continued attempt to slow soaring price rises.

Darren Morgan, director of economic statistics at the ONS, said: “Across the quarter as a whole, growth was driven by IT and construction, partially offset by falls in health, education and public administration, with these sectors affected by strikes.”

The ONS figures showed that while the economy grew slightly over the first three months of 2023, in March it contracted by 0.3%, with car sales and the retail sector having a bad month.

Mr Morgan told the BBC’s Today programme that car sales had been “relatively weak” for March, while retail sales had been hit by wet weather which put people off visiting the High Street.

“We also saw food store sales slip and retailers told us that the increased cost of living and rising food prices are continuing to affect consumer spending,” he added.

The economy just about grew in the first quarter of this year, but at 0.1% that was by the barest possible margin. The fall in March, the latest month, is of some concern with the service sector going into reverse, and car sales disappointing.

Strikes and the weather are factors here, but there is no denying the sluggish pattern that has persisted for a year now, as energy prices have risen. It will be not much comfort that Germany is not growing at all. On a quarterly basis the UK economy has still not regained all the ground lost since the pandemic and Brexit.

The current second quarter could see a fall too given the extra bank holiday. But forecasters are looking for the second half of the year for growth to start climbing again.

After a massive energy shock and other crises, the avoidance of a recession exceeds expectations. As the Bank of England said yesterday, two thirds of the impact of rate rises to date are yet to hit households.

While the engine of growth in the economy is on, Britain is going to have to wait a little longer for take off.

Responding to the latest growth figures, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said: “It’s good news that the economy is growing but to reach the government’s growth priority we need to stay focused on competitive taxes, labour supply and productivity.”

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “Despite our country’s huge potential and promise, today is another day in the dismal low growth record book of this Conservative government.”

David Bharier, head of research at the British Chambers of Commerce, said the figures highlighted the fragile nature of the UK economy and he expressed concern about how businesses will cope with further rate rises.

“The core issues affecting British businesses, such as unprecedented inflation, energy price shocks, and record tightness in the labour market, have not gone away,” he said.

He was jailed and spent almost two months in solitary confinement for taking part in a protest at the prestigious Bogazici University over the appointment of a pro-government dean.

Perit has voted only once before, and his friends Sude and Emru are among five million first-time voters who have known no other Turkish leader but Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Life for young people in Turkey has become increasingly difficult, Emru complained, pointing to soaring inflation of currently 44% according to official figures.

“You can’t afford to just study, you also have to get a full-time job to get by.”

Like her friends, Sude plans to vote for the opposition in Sunday’s presidential and parliamentary elections.

“I don’t feel safe for expressing my emotions or opinions. Because whenever I do I get attacked,” she said. She was handed a suspended jail sentence of 12 months earlier this year, for attending protests at Bogazici University.

Perit believes that after 20 years of Mr Erdogan and his AK Party in power, the time for change has come.

“Two decades is such a long time to change people’s mentality: people’s understanding of democracy and human rights. If Erdogan wins again this could be our last election. Regime could change.”

The election race is very tight and President Erdogan is facing his biggest challenge yet from opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who represents a bloc of six parties and has also secured the backing of more opposition groups.

The millions of of first-time voters make up almost 8% of the electorate, and many in Turkey see them as the largest group of undecided voters.

For Salih aged 20, the choice could not be clearer. “I think Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a charismatic leader, it’s important to have such charisma in Turkish politics,” he told the BBC.

He believes Mr Erdogan can build on his previous achievements, investing in Turkey’s future.

“Previously there were problems over energy supply and Turkey was dependent on other countries militarily. But now we are producing our own cars, UAVs (drones) and aircraft. Mr Erdogan solved all our problems,” he said.

Unsurprisingly all the candidates challenging for the presidency have tried to woo young voters.

While Mr Erdogan has emphasised advances in defence and technology, Mr Kilicdaroglu has promised greater freedoms and better employment prospects.

But Gizem, 20, argues it is the president who has improved freedoms in Turkey.

“Everyone is free to do whatever they like now. It was the opposition who curbed freedoms decades ago. Girls wearing headscarves like I do were not allowed in universities,” she said.

One of Mr Erdogan’s landmark reforms was to lift a decades-old ban on Islamist headscarves in universities and the civil service.

“If we have teachers, doctors, engineers wearing headscarves in this country today, that is all thanks to the freedoms Mr Erdogan has granted. If it wasn’t for him, we would still be oppressed in the name of secularism,” she explained.

Mr Kilicdaroglu introduced a bill in parliament last year to secure the right of female public servants to wear headscarves. Mr Erdogan responded by offering to take the issue to a referendum instead. The issue has since been shelved.

Two other candidates are challenging for the presidency: Muharrem Ince, a nationalist centre-left politician and Sinan Ogan, from the nationalist right.

Recent polls suggest that both of them appeal mainly to young voters, so supporters of the main opposition bloc fear they could erode Mr Kilicdaroglu’s vote and force the elections into a second round run-off two weeks later.

To win outright on Sunday, a candidate will have to secure more than half the vote.

The votes of women will also be decisive, and they make up 50.6% of the whole electorate.

It is thought that conservative women helped bring Mr Erdogan to power two decades ago, but that support is now dwindling.

His decision to pull Turkey out of the Istanbul Convention – an international accord designed to protect women against domestic violence – has alienated many women and prompted large protests.

In the past he has referred to women who are not mothers “half a woman”. He advised women to have at least three children and said men and women could not be treated equally.

One of the party’s in his People’s Alliance is an extreme Islamist party called Huda Par (Free Cause) and that has raised concerns among female MPs in his own AK Party.

Feminist Gulsum Kav argues the government does not believe in sexual equality and says women’s freedoms have been curbed: “They get attacked for wearing shorts, female musicians are threatened with jail terms because of how they dress, and artists get sentenced for criticising a sex assault case.”

“They want women to sit at home and do nothing. But women have changed. They will change Turkey too.”

It said the commander and two other PIJ militants killed in the hit on the fifth floor of a building near Khan Younis in the south of the territory.

On Wednesday militants in Gaza fired more than 500 rockets at Israel.

The Israeli military hit more than 130 militant targets in Gaza, in the heaviest fighting in nine months.

Twenty-five people have been killed in Gaza since Tuesday morning when Israel began its operation against the PIJ, the Palestinian Ministry of Health there says. Those killed include at least 10 civilians and three other PIJ commanders.

The Israeli military said four people, including three children, had been killed in Gaza by rockets falling short, though this has not been corroborated by Palestinian sources.

There have been no fatalities in Israel, though some rockets have hit homes and buildings. Most have landed in open areas or been intercepted.

The armed wing of the PIJ confirmed that the head of its missile unit, Ali Hassan Ghali, also known as Abu Muhammad, had died in Thursday morning’s attack.

The PIJ is the second biggest militant group in Gaza after Hamas, and has been responsible for many of the rocket attacks on Israel in recent years

Israel’s military confirmed it had targeted Ghali and what it called two “other Islamic Jihad operatives in Gaza”.

They described the commander as a central figure in the PIJ who had been “responsible for the recent rocket barrages launched against Israel”.

On Wednesday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel’s campaign was not over.

“We have hit Islamic Jihad with the most significant blow it has ever suffered,” he said, referring to the killing of the three PIJ commanders on Tuesday.

Egypt is reported to be working to try to secure a truce between the two sides.

This week’s air strikes were the deadliest since three days of hostilities between Israel and PIJ last August, in which 49 Palestinians were killed in Gaza.

There was a serious flare-up last week, as PIJ and other groups fired more than 100 rockets into Israel over two days, following the death in an Israeli prison of a Palestinian hunger striker. The Israeli military carried out air strikes on sites it said were linked to Hamas in response.

Tensions also remained high in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, after Israel carried out arrest raids.

Three Palestinians were killed in the town of Qabatiya by Israeli forces, who said the pair had fired at them. An Israeli soldier was also seriously wounded during a separate exchange of fire with Palestinian gunmen in Tubas.