Jailed Pakistan ex-PM Khan acquitted of leaking state secrets

AFP | Islamabad, Pakistan

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

A Pakistan high court on Monday overturned a treason conviction against former prime minister Imran Khan, who remains in jail on other charges. The conviction was one of three slapped on Khan in the runup to February elections, which he claims were orchestrated to prevent his return to power.

The decision by a two-member bench at Islamabad High Court was announced by Chief Justice Aamer Farooq, an AFP court reporter witnessed. “This is the first big case which was part of the political victimisation against Imran Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi which has been dashed to the ground,” Salman Safdar, a lawyer for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, told AFP outside of court.

Khan was convicted along with Qureshi, his former foreign secretary, of making public a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington in 2022.