By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan on Thursday dismissed a statement attributed to his ex-aide that he had fabricated a document to accuse his rivals of a foreign plot to oust him, saying he would not believe it unless he heard it from him.
Khan, who was removed from power last year after losing a no-confidence vote, has long claimed that a cipher he received in 2022 was evidence of a conspiracy by the United States and ‘some local actors’ to topple his government and ruin the economy.
But a purported confession by his former principal secretary Azam Khan, who went missing last month and reappeared on Wednesday, said the cipher was fake and that Khan had used it to create a narrative against the military establishment and the then opposition.
Azam Khan recorded a court statement on Wednesday saying a U.S. diplomatic encrypted letter was manipulated by Khan in March 2022 to serve his political goals.
“The Azam Khan I know is an honest and capable man. And he cannot say what I have read in the cipher,” Khan said in a video message to his supporters.
“Or he may have been forced into giving the statement … I don’t believe that Azam Khan has said many of the things written in the cipher and even that many of them are true.”
Khan said he wanted a proper inquiry into the cipher, which he said the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) could not do, to expose who was behind the “conspiracy” against him.
“The inquiry should be into which player played what role.”
The FIA has summoned Khan to appear before a joint inquiry team on July 25 in connection with the case.
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