Pakistan’s Ex-PM Khan Sentenced To 10 Years Over US-Related State Secrets
Khan’s former foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, was also given a 10-year jail term in the lawsuit stemming from a classified cable, internally known as a cipher.
Khan claimed the diplomatic cable had documented the U.S. role in the toppling of his government with the help of the military to punish him for pushing Pakistan to have a foreign policy free of American influence. Washington and the Pakistan military denied the accusations.
The 71-year-old former Pakistani prime minister, who was ousted from power in April 2022 by an opposition alliance, has rejected the cipher trial as politically motivated and manufactured by the country’s powerful military.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party decried the court ruling as “a complete mockery and disregard of the law” in a trial “with no access to media or public.” The party said its legal team “will challenge the decision in a higher court” and “hopefully will get this sentence suspended.”
The single-judge tribunal conducted the trial inside a high-security prison near Islamabad, with no access to foreign and most mainstream Pakistani media representatives.
Tuesday’s conviction under the Official Secrets Act comes ahead of parliamentary elections in Pakistan, which are scheduled for Feb. 8.
The cipher was sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington in March 2022, a month before a parliamentary vote of no-confidence removed Khan from power.
The ousted Pakistani leader has maintained that the U.S. in the cipher had encouraged the military to orchestrate the vote, and he was obligated to share the cipher's contents with his voters to expose the foreign "conspiracy" against his government.
Khan has been in jail since August after being convicted on controversial corruption charges and sentenced to three years. He was subsequently disqualified from contesting an election for five years in line with the election laws that bar convicts from standing.
The cricket hero-turned-politician denies any wrongdoing, accusing the military of orchestrating nearly 200 charges against him, ranging from rioting and corruption to terrorism since his ouster.
Khan swept to power in 2018 when his PTI won the 2018 parliamentary elections, but he developed differences with the military over key appointments and foreign policy matters that critics blame for his removal from office.
The military has directly ruled Pakistan for more than three decades, and generals have been constantly accused of playing a role in making or dislodging elected governments during most of the remainder of the 77 years of Pakistani independence..
The security institution denies it interferes in political matters, but its former chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, admitted in a nationally televised speech just days before his retirement in November 2022 that the military had been meddling in politics for the past 70 years.
A government crackdown backed by the military has detained scores of PTI leaders in recent months, forcing many others to quit the party or join anti-Khan political forces. The party is also banned from holding election rallies, and mainstream media cannot air Khan’s name.
Despite the crackdown, recent public opinion polls showed Khan is the most popular politician in Pakistan, and the PTI is the largest national political party.