Pakistan: Former Prime Minister Imran Khan gets relief in Cipher case, court cancels 10-year sentence due to lack of evidence

 

Former Prime Minister of Pakistan and founder of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party Imran Khan has got a big relief in the Sifar case. The Islamabad High Court has canceled the 10-year sentence given to Imran Khan due to lack of evidence. Along with Imran, the sentence of his colleague and former Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has also been canceled.

A two-member bench of the IHC on Monday acquitted former Prime Minister Imran Khan and former Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi after a petition was filed against the sentence announced by the trial court. During this, the court said that the conduct of the trial court was anything but according to the law, on occasions when the legal team was available, the appointment of the State Council for both Imran Khan and Qureshi, or conservative comments were made in the decision, which had nothing to do with the case.

The matter was related to national security

71-year-old Imran Khan was booked under the Official Secrets Act for leaking a secret diplomatic cable (cipher) sent by the Pakistani embassy in Washington. After which a special court in Pakistan convicted him and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. This case was related to national security. Imran Khan is accused of personal use of highly confidential information. However, after being ousted from power, Imran Khan had said that America was behind his ouster.

What is cipher case

Cipher or diplomatic cable is the communication that is sent by a foreign mission to its country. It contains information about all kinds of conversations, which is decoded and read. Cipher means a message written in secret keywords. Cipher is a secret and restricted message which is a part of diplomatic communication. Many conversations between two countries are kept secret. For this, the conversation is written in the form of code which is difficult to decode. Its original copy is kept in the Foreign Office. Copying it is also illegal. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan was caught in a case related to this.