CJ IHC Amer Farooq issues notice to FIA on Chairman PTI’s bail plea in cypher case

ISLAMABAD, Sep 18 (SABAH): The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday issued a notice to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on the post-arrest bail plea of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan in the cypher case.

Islamabad High Court (IHC) Chief Justice Aamer Farooq heard the bail plea of the PTI chairman. Barrister Salman Safdar appeared on behalf of Imran.

On the repeated request of the PTI chairman’s lawyers for an early hearing, the court remarked that the procedure is in place, according to which the bail application will be fixed by next Monday.

The court issued a notice to FIA on the petition and sought its response by the next hearing.

A special court had rejected the bail plea of the deposed prime minister, after which he approached the Islamabad High Court.

The PTI chairman is in jail on judicial remand till September 26. The special court has sought a challan from the FIA in the case.

Earlier, the PTI chief, in his petition, stated that the prosecution had filed a malicious and fabricated case. He argued that the special court, made to hear cases related to the Official Secrets Act, “completely ignored several of the prosecution’s irregularities and contradictions”.

A written order by special court judge Abul Hasnat Zulqarnain stated that the missing cypher case was a top-secret case, and the prosecution had “irrefutable evidence against Imran Khan Shah Mahmood Qureshi to prove their connection to the case”.

The court noted that “sufficient incriminating evidence is available on record to connect the accused with the instant case”.

“[The] record further depicts that there appear reasonable grounds for believing that the accused/petitioners are guilty of the offence [under] sections 5 and 9 of the Official Secrets Act, 1923 in the light of the content of the instant FIR [First Information Report].

“Moreover, there are also reasonable grounds for believing that the accused/petitioners have committed a non-bailable offence. The record which is in color of various documents is sufficient for the purpose of discarding the bails of both the accused,” said a seven-page written order.

In the order, the court also noted that despite its directives issued on September 11, the counsels for the petitioners did not make any correction in the footnote of a certificate.

“[Therefore] this court [is] left with no option but to decide the instant bail applications due to non-compliance [of the court order] as well as on merit. Hence the instant post arrest bail applications of both the accused….stand dismissed.”

On March 27, 2022, before facing a vote of no-confidence, former premier Imran Khan had taken out a piece of paper – allegedly a diplomatic cypher – from his pocket and waved it at a public gathering in Islamabad, claiming it was evidence of an “international conspiracy” to topple his government.

The FIA initiated its probe into the so-called “cypher-gate” on July 19, this year after the PML-N-led coalition government announced an official inquiry against the former PM and his close associates for violating the Official Secrets Act, 1923 for illegal possession of the classified document public.

The agency arrested Qureshi, who had served as the country’s foreign minister during the PTI’s rule, on August 19.

An FIA Counter Terrorism Wing team interrogated Imran on August 26 inside Attock Jail in connection with the case. The agency announced Imran’s arrest on August 29.