Imran Khan (71) and his close aide former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi (67) were on Monday convicted by a special court judge on charges of leaking confidential documents during a hearing held at Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail. It was another blow to the two jailed leaders who could face the death penalty in the case.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Khan filed the petition in the Islamabad High Court through his lawyer Salman Safdar naming Attorney General and Interior Ministry Secretary Yusuf Naseem Khokhar as respondents.
He argued in the petition that the judge had passed the order “in haste”. “It appears that the judge was in a hurry to frame the charges and conclude the trial,” the petition said. It may be noted that the chargesheet was filed in the court recently and there is no direction for its speedy conclusion or to hold the hearing on a daily basis.”
He said the special court had framed charges under Section 5 of the Official Secrets Act, which was “gross violation of law.” Khan argued that the judge conducted a completely illegal trial by framing charges in the absence of key documentary evidence. .
The petition urged the High Court to declare the “hasty exercise” of framing charges as “illegal, illegal and contrary to established principles of the Criminal Procedure Code”.
Khan was arrested in August after he was booked for violating the Official Secrets Act by disclosing a confidential diplomatic document sent by the country’s embassy in Washington in March last year. The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) filed a chargesheet on September 30 against Khan and Qureshi, who had signed copies of it.
Meanwhile, an Islamabad-based anti-terrorism court issued permanent arrest warrants for nine leaders of Khan’s party in a case related to the violence outside the Federal Judicial Complex (FJC).
Khan and some of his party leaders are facing several cases after the party was ousted from power in the April 2022 and May 9 violence. More than 150 cases have been registered against Khan since he was ousted from power in April last year.
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