Imran moves IHC against bail cancellation

Qureshi moves IHC against his physical remand

ISLAMABAD:

The PTI’s jailed chairman, Imran Khan, has filed nine separate petitions in the Islamabad High Court (IHC), challenging the dismissal of his pre-arrest bail pleas across various cases, a result of his inability to appear in the respective courts.

Deposed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is entangled in approximately 180 cases including those filed under the country's anti-terrorism law, found himself sentenced to three years in prison on August 5.

Imprisoned and thus unable to attend the courts where he had originally submitted his pre-arrest bail applications, the PTI chairman encountered subsequent dismissals of these applications due to his absence.

The applications, presented through legal representative Salman Safdar advocate, name the state and complainants as respondents.

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Imran Khan implores the IHC to deem these trial court orders as invalid, illicit, and contradictory to the principles enshrined in Article 4 and 10-A of the Constitution.

He requests the IHC to guide the trial courts to comprehensively reassess the cases on their merits, "thereby rectifying the previous denial of bail due to my non-appearance."

Moreover, the PTI chairman urges the IHC to instruct the respondents to refrain from executing his arrest warrants in instances where his pre-arrest bail applications remain pending in a trial court.

“The dismissal of [these] application[s], lacking proper deliberation on the merits of the cases, [has] denied the petitioner his rightful access to a 'Fair Trial',” almost all the petitions add.

Shah Mahmood Qureshi

PTI vice chairman and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Saturday moved the Islamabad High Court against a special court’s orders to remand him in the custody of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) over an FIR filed under the Official Secrets Act, 1923 for his role in the alleged leak of a diplomatic cypher.

In a petition filed against his physical remand granted by a special court formed to hear cases related to the Official Secrets Act, he argued that the prosecution had failed to present any evidence against him and that was why the orders should be declared null and void.

Read more Cypher case: Qureshi moves IHC to annul orders of physical remand

“The Official Secrets Act court's orders to give physical remand should be declared null and void,” read the petition, adding that an order for a judicial remand should be passed instead.

Qureshi maintained that a “malicious case” was filed against him in “connivance with the federal government” for “political vendetta”.

The PTI stalwart added that an investigation was conducted by the FIA.

“I neither took the cypher telegram, nor disclosed its transcript to any unauthorised persons. Records prove that the cypher is with the foreign affairs ministry,” he stated.

Qureshi maintained that despite all these facts, the FIA had arrested and successfully obtained his physical remand.

“The trial court granted [the FIA my] physical remand, despite the prosecution failing to produce any evidence. Even in the FIR, the cypher is alleged to be in the possession of someone else,” he pleaded.

In conclusion, Qureshi stated that he had conveyed the message to the then-prime minister as per law while performing his duties as the foreign minister.

The federation and the home secretary have been made respondents in the plea.

Last week, the FIA arrested Qureshi from his residence in the federal capital.

The agency had booked former premier Imran Khan and Qureshi among others for “wrongful use” of official secret information and illegal retention of the cypher telegram – an official secret document – with malafide intention.

The FIR No 6/2023 read that the role of the former prime minister’s principal secretary Azam Khan, ex-planning minister Asad Umar, and other associates involved would be determined during the course of investigations.

The counter-terrorism wing (CTW) of the FIA had registered a case under sections 5 (wrongful communication, etc, of information) and 9 (attempts, incitements, etc) of the Official Secrets Act of 1923 read with Section 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of the then Interior Secretary Yousaf Naseem Khokhar in Islamabad.

The FIR revealed that the case had been registered upon the conclusion of an inquiry number 111/2023 dated October 5, 2022, registered with the FIA’s CTW.

It read that Imran, Qureshi, and their associates were involved in the communication of information contained in a secret classified document – a cypher telegram received from Parep Washington dated March 7, 2022, by the foreign affairs secretary – to unauthorised persons (public at large) by “twisting the facts to achieve their ulterior motives and personal gains” in a manner “prejudicial to the interests” of state security.