2023-10-23 09:27:04
ISLAMABAD (AP) — A Pakistani court on Monday formally charged Imran Khan with the crime of revealing official secrets following he is deposed in 2022, in a new move once morest the former prime minister, who might face a possible death penalty and likely will not be able to run. to the parliamentary elections in January.
Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi, his close aide and number two in Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, will go on trial this week in a high-security prison in the fortified city of Rawalpindi.
The charge of revealing state secrets can carry a sentence between life imprisonment and the death penalty, according to Umair Niazi, one of Khan’s defense lawyers. However, Niazi said he was confident that Khan and Qureshi would be acquitted because they had done “nothing wrong.”
The trial begins Friday, and both defendants have denied the charges. The hearings will be held behind closed doors before a special court in Adiyala prison, where Khan is being held. Khan’s lawyers have also opposed the closed-door trial.
The case relates to a speech in which Khan brandished a confidential diplomatic letter following his ouster in a no-confidence motion in parliament in 2022. The document has not been released by the government or Khan’s lawyers, but was apparently diplomatic correspondence between the Pakistani ambassador in Washington and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad.
At the rally, Khan held up the purported letter and claimed that it was proof that he was being threatened and that his removal was a US conspiracy apparently executed by the Pakistani military and government. Officials in Washington and Pakistan have denied the allegations.
Another Khan defense lawyer, Naeem Panjutha, said Monday that the former president and Qureshi were “hastily charged” with the intention of quickly convicting the popular opposition leader.
Khan has more than 150 charges pending, ranging from contempt of court to terrorism and inciting violence, and in early August received a three-year sentence for corruption offences. The Islamabad High Court later suspended that sentence in a legal victory for Khan.
But the victory was short-lived, as he was arrested once more soon following in August in the letter case.
At the moment, Khan cannot run in the January elections for two reasons. Firstly he would have to be acquitted of corruption charges in the case of bribery, and secondly he would have to be acquitted or have the charges dropped in the case of disclosure of secrets.
In a videotaped statement to the press, Khan Panjutha’s lawyer said his client was being denied a fair trial.
Over the weekend, Khan’s main political rival and former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, returned home following four years of self-imposed exile in London. Sharif appeared before a crowd gathered to welcome him in the eastern city of Lahore on Monday and declared that he forgave all those who had caused him hardship.
Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League party are expected to find a tough rival in Khan’s party, very popular among the population, ahead of the January elections.
Sharif has been on the run since he failed to appear before a Pakistani court in 2019 – during Khan’s rule – following his 10-year prison sentence for corruption offences.
However, a federal court recently granted him protection from arrest, which might have decided his return to Pakistan. He is yet to appear before the Islamabad High Court on Tuesday.
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