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Pakistan: On Friday, A Pakistani court rejected the bail plea of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. According to information, these petition sought bail and quashing of the first FIR in the cipher case for allegedly leaking state secrets and violating the laws of the country. Imran counsel Sardar Latif Khosa has argued that an FIR could not be registered against the ex-PM since his federal cabinet has classified the cipher.
Imran Khan, 71, was booked in March last year for revealing a secret diplomatic cable (cipher) sent by the country’s embassy in Washington and was subsequently arrested in August. A special court in Pakistan on Monday convicted him and his close aide, former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, in the case. The PTI chairman had challenged the registration of the FIR and sought bail in the case filed against him and the party’s vice chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi for misusing the secret document for their political gains.
The IHC had rejected Imran’s pleas to stop trial in the matter on October 26. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party chairman Imran Khan had approached the Islamabad High Court (IHC) against the FIR registered in August by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) along with bail in the case.
IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq had reserved the verdict on October 16 after the conclusion of the hearing, which he announced on Friday. The case is about a document sent by Pakistan’s embassy in Washington in March 2022, which Imran Khan tried to use for political purposes by claiming it was a foreign conspiracy to oust him from power in April last year. There was proof.
Imran Khan, who served as Prime Minister of Pakistan from August 2018 to April 2022, has been accused of “misusing the contents of the cipher” to create a narrative that his government was ousted by a US-orchestrated foreign conspiracy. Washington has denied this allegation.
Khan and Qureshi have pleaded not guilty to the charges.On September 30, the Federal Investigation Agency filed a charge sheet against Khan and Qureshi, who signed its copies.On Thursday, the Islamabad High Court dismissed Khan’s plea challenging his conviction in the case.
The court was originally scheduled to convict Khan on October 17, but it was delayed after Khan’s lawyers objected that they were not provided with copies of the charge sheet.
Allegedly, the cipher disappeared from Imran Khan’s possession. Khan had repeatedly said before and after the no-confidence motion against him last year that the cipher hinted at a conspiracy to remove him from the prime minister’s office.
Imran Khan was ousted in April 2022 through a vote of no confidence. On August 5 this year, he was jailed after being sentenced to three years in prison in the Toshakhana case by an Islamabad court.The PTI chief was arrested to serve his jail sentence.
Later, the Islamabad High Court suspended his sentence, but he was then arrested in the Cipher case and remained in jail on judicial remand. Later he was transferred to Adiala Jail. More than 150 cases have been registered against Khan since he was ousted from power in April last year. His Toshakhana sentence was later suspended by the IHC but he was arrested in the cipher case.
