Pakistan court declares ex-PM Imran Khan’s jail trial illegal, says lawyer

The Islamabad High Court Tuesday declared the jail trial of former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on charges of leaking state secrets illegal, Reuters reported citing the lawyer of the former prime minister. 

"Islamabad High Court has declared illegal the notification for jail trial," Naeem Panjutha, the lawyer of the former prime minister, said in a post on the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter).

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The special court issued the directives while hearing the appeal filed by the former prime minister against a single-member bench’s August 29 notification which had ordered jail authorities to keep Khan in “judicial lockup” making confidential diplomatic cable public and keeping it in his possession.

The charges against the former prime minister is related to a confidential diplomatic cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan's embassy in Washington last year, which he (Imran Khan) is accused of making public. The diplomatic cable reportedly went missing from Khan's possession.

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The former ruling party had said, the diplomatic cable from the Washington embassy contained a threat from the US to topple the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) government.

The former prime minister, who has been convicted in one graft case and suspended sentence to three years in jail, has been kept in the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi since September 26 when he was shifted there from the District Jail in Attock.

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Earlier in August, Pakistan’s law ministry issued a no-objection certificate (NOC) for the jail trial of the former prime minister as requested by the interior ministry and the special court.

Meanwhile, the former prime minister has said that he has been implicated in dozens of cases to keep him out of politics ahead of general elections in February because of his differences with the powerful Army generals of the country.

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The general elections in Pakistan are scheduled for February 8, 2024. Former three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has also returned from the UK from self-imposed exile last month.