Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan indicted on classified information leak charges

Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan was indicted Monday on charges under the country's Official Secrets Act involving the "wilful" leaking of damaging classified information.

The charges allege that while he was prime minister in 2022 he "illegally retained and wrongly communicated," a document containing top-secret information regarding the United States and Pakistan.

The case relates to a cable from Pakistan's U.S. Ambassador to then Foreign Minister Shah Qureshi claiming that Washington wanted Khan out over his failure to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The cable was reported missing from the prime minister's official files in September 2022 and the cabinet subsequently claimed it had been stolen.

"The cipher was entrusted to you in confidence by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs [but] you used the document while keeping it in your possession for the benefit of your personal political designs and compromised the cipher and the security system of Pakistan," the indictment reads.

Imran conspired to "misuse the contents of the cipher" at a meeting in his Islamabad home March 28, 2022, and failed to return the document to the foreign ministry.

Former Foreign Minister Qureshi is accused of aiding and abetting Khan and therefore was being prosecuted for the same offense. Both men are leaders of the main opposition party, the PTI.

The trial was opened and adjourned to Oct. 27 by a special court sitting at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, just outside Islamabad, where Khan, 71, and Qureshi, 67, are being detained on judicial remand, to provide time for witnesses to be called to appear.

Both men have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Khan's lawyer, Advocate Umair Niazi, said the defense would challenge the indictment in the High Court on grounds that it was invalid until the defense had received a full statement of witnesses and the case memo from the prosecution.

Niazi said Khan was adamant he had been the victim of a plot to topple his government. He also said there were no minutes of the alleged "conspiracy" meeting with Qureshi at his house in March 2022.

In August, Khan was convicted on corruption charges and sentenced to three years in prison and subsequently banned from running for elected office for five years by the country's election commission.