Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for leaking state secrets and techniques.
The choice was introduced by particular courtroom Decide Abul Hasnat Zulqarnain throughout a listening to held on the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.
Khan’s former overseas minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi was additionally given a 10-year jail sentence as a part of the cipher case.
It was alleged Khan had shared the contents of a secret cable despatched by the nation’s ambassador in Washington to the federal government in Islamabad.
Khan claimed the cable was proof of a conspiracy by the Pakistani army and US authorities to topple his authorities
in 2022, after he visited Moscow simply earlier than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He additionally beforehand mentioned the contents of the cable appeared within the media from different sources.
Khan’s occasion mentioned they’d problem the choice and referred to as it a “sham case”.
“We don’t accept this illegal decision,” Khan’s lawyer Naeem Panjutha posted on social media platform X following the sentencing.
It comes because the nation prepares to carry elections on February 8 – a vote Khan is barred from working in as a result of a earlier conviction.
Khan, a former-cricketer-turned-politician, was ousted as prime minister via a no-confidence vote in April 2022.
The 71-year-old, the founding father of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) occasion, was jailed in August 2023 on corruption prices – which he has claimed are politically motivated.
Whereas his jail time period was suspended as he challenged the corruption conviction, it dominated him in a foreign country’s basic elections subsequent week.
Pakistan has seen violent demonstrations since Khan’s arrest final yr. Authorities have cracked down on his supporters and occasion since then.