Pakistan’s former prime minister, Imran Khan, and his close aide, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, have been sentenced to 10 years in prison in a case known as the cipher case. They were found guilty of leaking state secrets and the decision was announced by Judge Abu Hasnat Zulqarnain at the Adiala jail in Rawalpindi.
The case involved an alleged diplomatic exchange between Washington and Islamabad, with Khan claiming it as evidence of a US plot to depose him as prime minister after he lost a no-confidence vote in 2022. The US officials denied the accusations, and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party rejected the court’s decision, announcing an appeal. The party claimed the prosecution was a political revenge, urging edge the judiciary to take notice of the court decision and that the cipher case was a drama made to target Khan and Qureshi. PTI also said that the legal team will appeal the sentence, and questioned the decision just before the upcoming elections.
