By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: A court on Thursday stayed the secret trial of former Prime Minister Imran Khan in a case involving alleged leaks of state secrets, his lawyer said, in a blow to the government that accuses him of treason.
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) granted a stay order on the trial, which had been taking place behind closed doors at a prison in Rawalpindi after Khan’s lawyer argued that it was a “patent miscarriage of justice” and violated his right to a fair and public hearing.
Khan, who was ousted in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in April 2022, is facing charges of revealing classified diplomatic correspondence between the United States and Pakistan that he says proved his removal was part of a U.S. plot.
He is also serving a three-year jail term in a separate corruption case and is barred from contesting national elections scheduled for Feb. 8.
The IHC ordered the special court hearing the state secrets case, also known as the “cipher” reference, to stop conducting the trial inside the Adiala prison in Rawalpindi, where Khan is detained, and to hold open hearings instead.
The IHC had ordered the special court handling the cipher case to conduct an open trial last month, but the court accepted a request from the prosecution to hold the proceedings in-camera, citing security reasons.
Khan’s lawyer, Salman Akram Raja, appealed against the decision in the IHC, saying that only a few journalists were allowed to attend the trial and that the public had a right to know the truth.
“The Islamabad High Court has stayed the cipher trial on account of the patent miscarriage of justice pointed out by me in the petition filed on behalf of Imran Khan Sahib,” Raja wrote on social media platform X on Thursday.
Newspaper Dawn reported that the IHC’s Justice Aurangzeb questioned the government’s lawyer on why the special court was holding secret hearings when the IHC had ordered an open trial.
“Security is not the court’s jurisdiction and we won’t interfere in this,” Aurangzeb said.
Attorney General Mansoor Usman Awan responded that only the testimonies of the witnesses were being held in-camera rather than the entire trial.
He said that 25 witnesses were to be recorded in the case, out of which 13 had already given their statements and two had been cross-examined.
The judge told Awan that from what he was describing, “this doesn’t look like an open trial to me.”
“You can’t tell people to come and go whenever you want to,” he was quoted as saying by Dawn.
The high court adjourned the case till Jan. 11 and issued an interim order barring the special court from proceeding with the trial till the next hearing.
Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has been demanding an open trial and accusing the caretaker set-up of using the state secrets case on behalf of military establishment, which has ruled Pakistan for nearly half of its history, to silence the former prime minister Khan.
The military denies any involvement. Washington has also dismissed Khan’s accusations that it orchestrated his downfall.
Khan, a former cricket star who became prime minister in 2018, was convicted in August for failing to disclose assets earned from the sale of state gifts while he was in office.
A high court on Thursday refused to suspend his corruption conviction, which he denies and says is politically motivated.
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