A special court on Thursday ordered to produce Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi before it on November 28 in the cipher case. Judge Abu Alhasnaat Zulqurnain presided over the hearing wrapped up within minutes. Following the Islamabad High Court (IHC) orders, the cipher case hearing took place at the Judicial Complex in G-11 instead of Adiala jail. Lawyers Ali Bukhari and Khalid Yousaf appeared before the court for the hearing. The judge asked for a copy of the Islamabad High Court’s divisional bench, which was provided by the court staff. Later, the court adjourned the hearing and ordered the jail authorities to present the former prime minister and PTI chief and ex-foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi before the court on Tuesday (November 28).

On November 21, the Islamabad High Court ruled that the cipher case’s jail trial was illegal. The court had declared proceedings since August 29 to be illegal, including the indictment. It added that the notification issued by the law ministry on August 29 to allow the jail trial was declared to be “without lawful authority and no legal effect…”

Cipher case

The first information report (FIR) was registered on August 15 under the Official Secrets Act. It was registered on the complaint of the Home Secretary. Former prime minister Imran Khan and former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi were nominated in the report, while names of former principal secretary Azam Khan and former planning minister Asad Umar were also mentioned. The FIR stated that the former prime minister and foreign minister distorted the facts of the diplomatic cipher. “A conspiracy was launched to misuse the contents of the cipher to fulfill nefarious purposes”, it added. It further stated that the former premier and top diplomat endangered the state interests.

 
Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)