A special court established under the Official Secrets Act on Tuesday handed both former premier Imran Khan and ex-foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi 10 years in jail in the cipher case.
The cipher case pertains to a diplomatic document that the Federal Investigation Agency’s charge sheet alleges was never returned by Imran. The PTI has long held that the document contained a threat from the United States to oust Imran as prime minister.
The verdict comes nine days before the February 8 general elections, which the PTI is contesting amid a state crackdown and without an electoral symbol.
Both Imran and Qureshi have been in jail in the run-up to the elections. While Imran’s candidature was rejected, Qureshi was cleared to run for an NA seat from Thar. But today’s conviction means that both of them have been disqualified from contesting elections for the next five years.
This is Imran’s second conviction as he was also convicted in the Toshakhana case on Aug 5, and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. The Islamabad High Court (IHC) had suspended his sentence. However, a division bench had later rejected Imran’s petition seeking the suspension of the conviction.
This is the former foreign minister’s first conviction.
Special Court Judge Abual Hasnat Zulqarnain announced the verdict in the case. At the outset of the hearing, Imran and Qureshi were given a questionnaire under Section 342 (power to examine the accused) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
After Imran recorded his statement, the court asked him about the whereabouts of the cipher, to which he replied: “I have said the same in my statement that I do not know. The cipher was in my office.”
The judge then sentenced the two to 10 years in jail in the case. After announcing the verdict, the judge stepped out of the courtroom, at which Qureshi protested that his statement was not recorded.
Case history
The former premier and Qureshi, who is also behind bars, were first indicted in the case in October. Both had pleaded not guilty. The IHC had termed the government’s notification for a jail trial “erroneous” and scrapped the entire proceedings.
The special court had begun the cipher trial afresh last month at the Adiala district jail after Imran and Qureshi were indicted for a second time in the case on December 13.
On December 22, the Supreme Court had approved the post-arrest bails of Imran and Qureshi. While Imran remained incarcerated in other cases, Qureshi’s expected release was also stalled as he was manhandled and re-arrested in a fresh May 9 case.
Days later, Justice Miangul Hasan Aurangzeb had restrained the special court from proceeding against the suspects — including Qureshi — till Jan 11, noting that there were “legal errors” in the case.
However, the stay order on the in-camera trial was withdrawn earlier this month after the state counsel assured that the witnesses’ statements would be recorded afresh.
On January 18, the special court had recorded the statement of five witnesses, including former principal secretary Azam Khan. Other witnesses comprised Aneesur Rehman, Javed Iqbal, Hidayatullah and Mohammad Ashfaq.
Azam Khan claimed that the cipher never returned to his office and he had intimated the prime minister, his military secretary as well as the relevant staff numerous times.
The next day, the caretaker government had approached the Supreme Court challenging the IHC’s November 21 verdict that declared the trial illegal.
In a subsequent hearing, Imran had claimed that the cipher was still with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and he received a rephrased version of the diplomatic cable.
On January 22, the special court recorded the statement of another four witnesses, including ex-foreign secretary Sohail Mehmood and former interior secretary Yousaf Naseem Khokhar.
Mehmood had said that the copy sent to the ex-PM was never returned while Qureshi said that he returned the copy to the ministry and the ex-secretary replied in the affirmative.
The next day, six more prosecution witnesses recorded their statements. Initially, there were 28 witnesses, but only 25 testified before the court after three witnesses were dropped from the list.
Besides Interior Secretary Aftab Akbar Durrani, ex-envoy to the US Asad Majeed recorded his statement in the case. When Majeed concluded that there was no word of “conspiracy” or “threat” in the diplomatic cable, Imran retorted that why the government then issued the demarche to the US.
In the next hearing, the court concluded the cross-examination of four prosecution witnesses.
The FIA prosecutor then alleged that the defence side was applying delaying tactics to prolong the trial and urged the court to close the defence counsel’s right of cross-examination. Subsequently, Judge Zulqarnain appointed Abdul Rehman and Hazrat Younis as defence counsel for both PTI leaders in the next hearing.
Imran had said his lawyers could not appear before the court as they were contesting the upcoming general elections.
He had termed the trial nothing less than a “joke”, saying that the prosecution and defence team both belonged to the government.
A day ago, Imran was reluctant to appear before the judge. However, Qureshi appeared before him to attend the proceedings. The prison authorities allowed only three court reporters to cover the proceedings of the cipher case that continued for over 13 hours.
