Islamabad: Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan Friday filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking bail in the cipher case, challenging the rejection of his post-arrest bail pleas in the case by the Islamabad High Court.
Khan, 71, was arrested in August after a case was filed against him by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for disclosing a secret diplomatic cable (cipher) sent by the country’s embassy in Washington in March last year.
A special court in Pakistan last week indicted him along with his close ally ex-foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in the case and Tuesday adjourned the hearing of the cipher case until November 7 without recording statements of any of the ten witnesses.
The petition was filed after the Islamabad High Court (IHC) last week rejected Khan’s petitions seeking post-arrest bail in the cipher case and the dismissal of its first information report (FIR).
Khan, through his counsel Salman Safdar, challenged the IHC verdict.
The FIA, September 30, filed the charge sheet against Khan and Qureshi to a special court formed under the Official Secrets Act, 1923.
The FIA invoked in the charge sheet sections 5 and 9 of the Official Secrets Act, which may lead to a death sentence or two to 14 years’ imprisonment if convicted. The two were indicted October 23.
Khan, who served as prime minister of Pakistan from August 2018 to April 2022, is accused of “misuse the contents of the cipher” to build a narrative that his government was ousted due to a foreign conspiracy hatched by the US, a charge denied by Washington.
The charge sheet added that Qureshi “aided and abetted” Khan and, therefore, was liable for the act in the same manner.
Khan’s government was removed April 9 last year, while the cable was sent by the country’s embassy in Washington in March last year.
The cricketer-turned-politician and several of his party leaders have been facing numerous cases since the ouster of the party from power in April 2022 and later in the wake of the May 9 violence.
More than 150 cases have been registered against Khan since his ouster from power in April last year.
Khan was ousted through a vote of no-confidence in April 2022. He was incarcerated August 5 this year after an Islamabad court sentenced him to three years in prison in the Toshakhana case. He was lodged in the Attock District Jail to serve his prison term.
Later, his sentence was suspended by the Islamabad High Court, but then he was arrested in the cipher case and remained in the Attock jail on judicial remand. He was later shifted to the high-security Adiala jail in Rawalpindi.
PTI