Judge solicits jail SOPs for Imran’s phone calls

The special court designated to handle cases under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) has solicited the standard operating procedures (SOPs) of Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail for its next hearing scheduled on October 18.

The direction comes after the jail's superintendent informed the court that he could not permit Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan, who is incarcerated in the cypher case, to communicate with his sons abroad via phone. This decision was based on the prison's manual, which does not allow this facility for inmates detained under the OSA.

Special Court Judge Abual Hasnat Zulqarnain presided over the proceedings, which took place within the Adiala Jail premises. The Adiala Jail superintendent, in his report submitted to the court, explained that he had denied Imran Khan's request to speak with his sons residing abroad, citing the prohibition on suspects arrested under the OSA from communicating with individuals outside the country.

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The court has instructed that the SOPs concerning inmate phone privileges should be presented during the next hearing on October 18. A similar situation had arisen when Imran Khan was detained in Attock Jail.

Last month, in response to a contempt petition filed by Imran Khan for not allowing him to contact his sons abroad via phone or WhatsApp, the superintendent of Attock Jail informed the special court that the prison manual did not permit such communication. He added that prisoners held in OSA-related cases were not eligible for making international calls.

Imran had been sentenced to three years in jail in the Toshakhana (gift repository) case. Although the Islamabad High Court had suspended the sentence, Imran 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 the "wrongful use" and illegal retention of a classified document.

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The superintendent of Attock Jail informed the judge through a written response that he could not consider violating the court's orders.

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. This was based on a complaint filed by the then interior secretary Yousaf Naseem Khokhar in Islamabad following an inquiry that concluded on October 5, 2022.

The complaint alleged that Imran, Qureshi, and their associates had communicated information from a secret classified document to unauthorized individuals, which was "prejudicial to the interests" of state security.