ISLAMABAD: After the Islamabad High Court (IHC) acquitted the top Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders in the cipher case, the former ruling party on Monday celebrated the victory in the legal battle which seemed to pave the way for Imran Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s release.
Commenting on the IHC’s verdict, PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan said that a “baseless and un-founded” case came to its conclusion today. He added that the PTI founder spent 10 months in jail due to the cipher case — the controversy first emerged on March 27, 2022.
He claimed that the former prime minister would come out of jail very soon and pinned hopes on the judiciary to provide justice to the embattled party.
The politico added that all “politically-motivated cases based on vengeance” against the PTI leadership would also be nullified.
Similarly, the PTI-backed lawmakers in the Punjab Assembly also chanted slogans after the IHC acquit-ted the PTI founder and the party’s vice-chairman in the cipher case.
The PTI lawmakers thumped their desks in the House in support of the former prime minister.
In a major relief to the embattled former ruling party, the IHC annulled Imran and Qureshi’s conviction in the infamous cipher case containing charges of misusing and misplacing the classified diplomatic document.
IHC Chief Justice Aamir Farooq and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb announced the short verdict on the pleas challenging the conviction in the cipher case after reserving it earlier today.
The PTI founder and party’s vice-chairman were sentenced to 10 years each in prison in the cipher case in January this year.
The case pertains to allegations that the former prime minister had made public contents of a secret cable sent by the country’s ambassador in Washington to the government in Islamabad.
The latest relief for the PTI founder came days after IHC approved his bail petition in the £190 million National Crime Agency (NCA) settlement reference on May 15. –Agencies
