ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court will review former prime minister Imran Khan’s application against his prison trial proceedings today, Wednesday, in a case in which he has been facing the allegations of mishandling a diplomatic cable and leaking state secrets, his spokesperson on legal affairs confirmed in a video message.
A special court established to hear the case – commonly known as the “cipher reference” – had been conducting the trial inside the Adiala prison in Rawalpindi for weeks without media or members of the public allowed, before the court ruled the hearings illegal last month and ordered an open trial.
Despite the court orders, the media was only given limited access to the special court hearings while dozens of journalists were made to wait outside the high-security prison.
“The Islamabad High Court evaluate how the trial is proceeding in the cipher case which we have challenged,” Khan’s spokesman, Naeem Haider Panjutha, said. “The prayer also mentions that Imran Khan should be acquitted.”
Panjutha also maintained in the past that the special court proceedings could not be described as an open trial. In an earlier statement, he noted the Islamabad High Court had objected to the way the cipher proceedings were taking place and ordered its resumption from the beginning for the same reason.
He noted the special court was only letting its own people and chosen journalists to attend the proceedings and made them sit so far away from where the lawyers argued that they could barely hear anything.
Khan’s application against the cipher case proceedings will be taken up by Justice Mian Gul Hasan Aurangzeb who has been urged to declare the case null and void and acquit the former prime minister.