Pakistan’s Khan sentenced to 10 years in jail
ISLAMABAD: A court in Pakistan on Tuesday sentenced former prime minister Imran Khan and one of his party deputies to 10 years in prison each after finding them guilty of revealing official secrets.
The verdict was another blow to Khan, a former cricket star-turnedIslamist politician, who was ousted through a no-confidence vote in parliament in April 2022 and is currently serving a three-year prison sentence in a graft case.
Zulfiqar Bukhari, spokesman for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-eInsaf (Pakistan Movement for Justice, or PTI) party, said the court announced the verdict at a prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. Authorities said Khan and his deputy Shah Mahmood Qureshi have the right to appeal the ruling in the case, popularly known as the Cipher case.
The sentence comes ahead of the South Asian country’s February 8 parliamentary elections, which Khan is barred from running in because of his previous criminal conviction.
Although Khan will not be on the ballot for that poll, he remains a potent political force because of his grassroots following and anti-establishment rhetoric. He says the legal cases against him were a plot to sideline him ahead of the vote.
Pakistan has seen violent demonstrations since after Khan was arrested in May 2023. Authorities have cracked down on his supporters and party since then.
The country’s independent human rights commission has said there is little chance of a free and fair election next month because of “pre-poll rigging,” and expressed concern about authorities rejecting the candidacies of Khan and senior PTI figures.
The Cipher case is one of more than 150 cases pending against Khan. Other charges range from contempt of court to terrorism and inciting violence.
In the secrets case, Khan is alleged to have waved a confidential document — a classified cable — at a rally after he was toppled. The document, dubbed “Cipher,” has not been made public by either the government or Khan’s lawyers, but was apparently diplomatic correspondence between the Pakistani ambassador to Washington and the Foreign Affairs Ministry in the capital Islamabad.
During the speech, Khan claimed the document was proof he was being threatened and that his ouster was a US conspiracy, allegedly executed by the military and the Pakistani government. Washington and Islamabad officials have denied the claim.
Tuesday’s verdict comes weeks after Khan and Qureshi were indicted in the case.
During the trial, Khan’s party and supporters had feared he could be sentenced to death for treason. The ex-premier has maintained his innocence and says he didn’t disclose the exact contents of the cable. Qureshi was accused of manipulating a diplomatic cable’s contents to gain political advantage.
Political analyst Syed Muhammad Ali said the latest verdict was expected, adding that the two “indeed damaged Pakistan’s diplomatic ties with the United States, and they also embarrassed” then-Pakistani ambassador Asad Majeed.