ISLAMABAD – The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday annulled the conviction of PTI founder Imran Khan and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in the cipher case.
A two-member bench comprising IHC Chief Justice Aamer Faroor and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb announced the ruling on appeals filed Khan and his then Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi against their conviction in the cipher case.
The divisional bench had reserved the verdict earlier in the day after both sides completed their arguments.
The bench has accepted their pleas and acquitted them in the case.
The Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan and his second in line were given a 10-year prison sentence in cipher case, after a special court found them guilty of leaking state secrets in January this year.
Judge Abu Alhasnaat Zulqurnain of special court had announced the verdict in Adiala Jail. PTI founder and Qureshi faced the high profile case for allegedly retaining and communicating a classified diplomatic cable sent by Pakistan’s ambassador to US.
Cipher case
In August 2023, an FIR was lodged against PTI founder, registered by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), invoked Section 5 of the Official Secrets Act 1923 on the complaint of the Home Secretary.
The case was registered against PTI by the anti-terrorism wing of the apex investigation agency.
Imran Khan waved a letter at a public gathering in Islamabad on March 27, 2022, claiming that it was the evidence of an “international conspiracy” backed by the United States to topple his government.
Following his claims, the FIA launched an investigation against Khan, who has been named in more than 150 civil and criminal cases, for allegedly making public a confidential diplomatic cable and keeping it in his possession.
Later, it emerged that the PTI chief has lost the copy of the cipher, written by then Pakistan’s ambassador to the US.
Azam Khan, known as a close aide of the PTI chairman, recorded his statement against PTI chairman accusing him of peddling a sham narrative about the US regime’s cipher controversy.
Investigators claimed that Khan allegedly used cipher to manipulate the public’s attention towards foreign involvement in no-confidence motion by the opposition.
