Judge told OSA inmates can’t make calls abroad

Attock Jail official files response to Imran’s contempt plea in special court

ISLAMABAD:

In response to a contempt petition filed by PTI chairman Imran Khan for not allowing him to speak to his sons abroad via phone or WhatsApp, the superintendent of Attock Jail on Friday informed a special court formed under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) that the prison manual did not permit this act.

He added that the facility of making a phone call abroad was not available to prisoners locked up in cases related to the OSA.

Anti-Terrorism Court Judge Abul Hasnat Muhammad Zulqarnain, who has been assigned the task of presiding over trials under the OSA, was hearing the plea filed by Imran, who was incarcerated at Attock Jail.

The deposed premier was being sentenced to three years in jail in the Toshakhana (gift repository) case but even though the Islamabad High Court had suspended the imprisonment, the PTI chief was arrested in the cypher case -- an FIR filed against him under the OSA by the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) Counter Terrorism Wing (CTW) for “wrongful use” and illegal retention of the classified document.

The superintendent of Attock Jail told the judge in his written response that he could not even consider violating the court’s orders.

Read Imran, Qureshi denied bail in cypher case

He also attached a letter from the Punjab Prison Foundation director with his reply.

The court called for arguments on September 18 on the response of the Attock Jail superintendent.

The PTI chairman is on a 14-day judicial remand in the cypher case at the Attock Jail.

The FIA CTW had registered a case against Imran and his fellow party leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi under sections 5 (wrongful communication, etc., of information) and 9 (attempts, incitements, etc.) of the OSA 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 upon the conclusion of an inquiry number 111/2023 dated Oct 5, 2022.

It read that Imran, Qureshi, and their associates were involved in communication of information contained in a secret classified document – a cypher telegram received from 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.