‘Can’t say if Imran waved cipher at rally’

Former bureaucrat says his earlier statement not made under oath

ISLAMABAD:

Azam Khan, former principal secretary to ex-prime minister Imran Khan, asserted that his statements recorded under Section 161 and Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) in the diplomatic cipher case were not made under oath.

"My statement under Section 161 of the CrPC was recorded by the IO [investigation officer], and my statement under Section 164 of the CrPC was recorded by the Magistrate without an oath," Khan stated in his written testimony before a special court on January 18.

Azam Khan is one of the prosecution witnesses in the case filed by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in August last year against former prime minister Imran Khan and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi. The FIA accuses Imran and Qureshi of manipulating a classified diplomatic cipher before a vote of no confidence that led to the ouster of the PTI-led government in April 2022.

On July 19, 2023, the former PML-N government claimed that Azam Khan had "confessed" before the FIA and a magistrate that Imran Khan used an encrypted diplomatic letter to serve his political goals.

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Former Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, addressing a press conference, declared Azam’s alleged statement as a charge-sheet against the PTI founder.
On Thursday, January 18, Khan appeared in the Special Court holding the trial of Imran and Qureshi inside Adiala Jail under the Official Secrets Act (OSA),

1923 and provided testimony after taking an oath on the Holy Quran at the insistence of the accused. According to the written order of the court, the former bureaucrat admitted that while the statements were not given under oath, each page of the statements was duly signed by him.

In his court testimony, he described how he shared the copy of the cipher telegram with Imran Khan in March 2022 and how the document went missing. The former bureaucrat said the cipher copy was not returned to him by the time he relinquished the position of principal secretary to the PM.

He claimed that Imran Khan misplaced the copy and directed his military secretary and personal staff "a number of times" to search for it, but then the former PM waved a piece of paper in the public rally "implying" that it was the diplomatic cipher.

On March 27, 2022, ahead of the vote of no-confidence, Imran had pulled out a piece of paper—allegedly the cipher—from his pocket and waved it at a public gathering in Islamabad, claiming it was evidence of an "international conspiracy" being hatched to topple his government.

Referring to the incident, Khan, however, clarified that "as he [Imran Khan] did not open or read it [in the rally], therefore, I do not know what the paper was."