ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s former interior minister Rana Sanaullah, part of the outgoing cabinet of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif which was dissolved on Wednesday, has called for an investigation after a US news outlet published what it said was a classified Pakistani government document revealing that the US State Department pressured Islamabad in a March 2022 meeting to remove Imran Khan as prime minister.

Ex-PM Khan has since last year, in what has come to be known as the ‘cipher case,’ said there was diplomatic correspondence between Washington and Islamabad that proved a US conspiracy to topple his government. Washington has denied being involved.

The Intercept, an online American nonprofit news organization, on Thursday, published the text of the so-called Pakistani cable for the first time, saying it was produced by Islamabad’s ambassador to Washington after a meeting between him and two State Department officials.

One month after the meeting with US officials documented in the leaked document, a no-confidence vote was held in parliament, leading to Khan’s removal from power.

“Investigation needs to be held to establish the authenticity of the information or source document. Potentially, it is a very sinister, treacherous, and seditious act,” Rana Sanaullah, the outgoing interior minister and a senior leader in Sharif’s PMLN party, said on Twitter.

Sanaullah said Khan had a copy of the classified document, which he had not returned and had accepted he had misplaced.

“If proven guilty, Khan should be tried under the Official Secret Act,” the ex-minister said.

https://twitter.com/RanaSanaullahPK/status/1689354888004907008?s=20

Last month, on the recommendation of the Sharif cabinet, the Federal Investigation Agency had formed a joint investigation team against Khan for “prejudicing” national security and the interests of the state by exposing official secrets. The decision to probe Khan in the ‘cipher case’ was taken after the ex-premier’s former principal secretary Azam Khan reportedly recorded a court statement saying the letter was manipulated by Khan in March 2022 to serve his political goals.

Meanwhile, Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, in a statement issued Thursday, called out the Sharif cabinet for “denying the cipher’s existence” and demanded the debate around it should be put in the “right perspective” by acknowledging that Khan was removed from power through foreign intervention via a no-confidence vote.

“We reiterate our demand that a high-powered judicial commission should be constituted to investigate the issue comprehensively and make its findings public,” the PTI said.