Imran Khan and PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) vice-president Qureshi were convicted to ten years in prison each in the Cipher case, according to a party official.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was sentenced to ten years in prison on Tuesday, less than two weeks before the country’s election, in which his party is barred from running.
Khan’s punishment was handed out inside Adiala jail, where he has been detained for much of the time since his detention in August and is buried under a slew of court cases that he claims are contrived to block his return to government.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) vice president and Khan’s foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, received the same punishment.
Imran Khan, the former captain of Pakistan’s cricket team, has been sentenced to ten years in prison for disclosing state secrets. A Pakistani court in Rawalpindi convicted former Prime Minister Imran Khan and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi to ten years in prison in a cypher case on Tuesday.
The prison sentence comes a week before the February 8 general elections, in which Imran Khan has been barred from running.
Khan has continuously disputed the charge, saying the evidence and his dismissal as prime minister were a nasty scheme concocted by his political opponents and military.
Khan allegedly told his attorneys, “I have never played or watched a fixed match in my life, and I don’t want to sit here and be part of this fixed match,” following the hearing. I’m hurting; may I leave now?
In March 2022, the contents of a secret diplomatic cable known as the cipher, which came from Pakistan’s embassy in Washington, were made public. This led to Imran Khan’s arrest on charges of violating the Official Secrets Act.
