ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday acquitted former prime minister Imran Khan and his close aide, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, in a case relating to the leaking of state secrets, Khan’s lawyer and his party said.
Khan and Qureshi were serving 10 years in prison on charges of making public a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington in 2022, in what is commonly known as the cipher case.
Khan has said the cable was proof of a conspiracy by the Pakistan military and the US to topple his government in 2022 after he visited Moscow just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Washington and Pakistan’s military deny that accusation.
Khan and Qureshi, who were convicted in the case in January this year, had appealed the decision in the Islamabad High Court, which set aside their convictions on Monday.
“Thank God, the sentence is overturned,” Naeem Panjutha, a member of legal team of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, said on X.
Sayed Zulfikar Bukhari, a PTI member and a close Khan aide, also confirmed the development on X. “Conviction in Cypher Case set aside by IHC, appeals of IK [Imran Khan] and SMQ [Shah Mahmood Qureshi] allowed,” he said.
In response to Monday’s judgment, the Pakistani government, which says Khan violated clauses of the state secrets law by revealing contents of the secret diplomatic cable, said the prosecution was awaiting the detailed judgment to decide whether it would appeal the acquittal.
“If the prosecution felt like they should go into appeal then after reading the [detailed] judgment and analyzing all the details, it is the prosecution’s job and the prosecution is at liberty to decide,” Aqeel Malik, a government spokesman, told reporters at a press conference.
The state secrets case was one of the four cases in which Khan was convicted weeks before Pakistan’s national election in February. His sentences in two other cases have been suspended.
But Khan will remain in prison to serve a seven-year sentence in another case relating to his marriage to his third wife, Bushra Bibi, which contravened Islamic traditions.
The ex-premier, who was ousted in a parliamentary no-trust vote in April, has been in jail since last August. Arguably Pakistan’s most popular politician, Khan says all cases against him are politically motivated to keep him out of politics.
Pakistan court acquits ex-PM Khan, aide in state secrets case
https://arab.news/j88sn
Pakistan court acquits ex-PM Khan, aide in state secrets case
- The case centered around an alleged diplomatic cable that Khan used to claim his ouster in 2022 was part of ‘foreign conspiracy’
- Pakistan’s government says the prosecution is awaiting the detailed judgment to decide whether it will appeal against the acquittal
Hundreds of migrants, including Pakistanis, land in Greece after search operation at sea
- Rescued migrants were taken to a temporary facility on Crete after reaching the port of Agia Galini
- Greece has made deportations of rejected asylum seekers a priority under its migration policy
ATHENS: Greece’s Coast Guard rescued about 540 migrants from a fishing boat off Europe’s southernmost island of Gavdos on Friday, one of the biggest groups to reach the country in recent months.
The migrants were found during a Greek search operation some 16 nautical miles (29.6 km) off Gavdos, a Coast Guard statement said. They are all well and are being taken to a temporary facility on the nearby island of Crete after reaching the port of Agia Galini, a Coast Guard official said, adding most of the migrants were men from Bangladesh, Egypt and Pakistan.
In a separate incident on Thursday, the EU’s border agency Frontex rescued 65 men and five women from two migrant boats in distress off Gavdos, the Greek Coast Guard said.
Greece was on the front line of a 2015-16 migration crisis when more than a million people from the Middle East and Africa landed on its shores before moving on to other European countries, mainly Germany.
Flows have ebbed since then, but both Crete and Gavdos — the two Mediterranean islands nearest to the African coast — have seen a steep rise in migrant boats, mainly from Libya, reaching their shores over the past year and deadly accidents remain common along that route.
Greece, Cyprus, Spain and Italy will be eligible for help in dealing with migratory pressures under a new EU mechanism when the bloc’s pact on migration and asylum enters into force in mid-2026.
The center-right government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said deportation of rejected asylum seekers will be a priority.
