ISLAMABAD: On Thursday, the attorney for former prime minister Imran Khan expressed concerns regarding the way the cipher case was handled. He claimed that the interior ministry had “hijacked the case for no reason” and that the foreign ministry, which was in charge of the document, appeared unconcerned about it disappearing.
In his arguments before Chief Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), Barrister Salman Safdar asked for the sentencing of Imran Khan and Shah Mehmood Qureshi in the cipher case to be suspended.
The bench, however, turned down the plea in favor of making a snap decision regarding their appeals.
Mr. Khan is charged with violating national security by leaking and misplacing the cipher, a secret diplomatic communication, and exploiting it for political advantage. According to Mr. Safdar, the cipher is still in Foreign Office documents and has been shared with eight people in transcription.
According to Mr. Safdar, Azam Khan, the principal secretary to Imran Khan, the prime minister at the time, received a copy of the cipher from the Foreign Office. Mr. Azam claimed to have given Mr. Khan a copy, but Mr. Khan never gave it back. The attorney stated that this might just be carelessness and not a crime, and that Mr. Khan could not be found guilty of it alone.
He added that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs failed to express any alarm or write a letter to the Prime Minister’s Office when the cipher vanished.
He claimed that upon learning that the PMO had lost its copy of the cipher, the foreign secretary responded by telling the PMO staff to attempt to locate the cipher rather than granting access to a copy of this private document.
Mr. Safdar also drew attention to the fact that, whereas the previous PM was allowed to keep the cipher for a year, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) sent Mr. Khan a notification seven months after receiving it.
Judge Aurangzeb pointed out that in the event that Azam Khan’s testimony is disregarded and he is the only witness to the cipher’s transfer to Mr. Khan, there will be no proof that the cipher was lost from the former premier’s possession.
The judge also asked whether legal provision allowed for the cipher’s one-year retention. In response, Mr. Safdar stated that the prosecution had adopted this position at the preliminary hearings.
The former prime minister’s attorney said he would wrap up the arguments by the following session when the court asked how long the attorney would take.
