A Pakistan court today Tuesday handed Imran Khan a 10-year jail term for leaking state secrets, his party said.
It is the harshest sentence against the former Prime Minister and cricketer in multiple cases and only days before a national election.
The special court found Khan guilty of making public the contents of a secret cable sent by Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington to the government in Islamabad, his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said. Former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was also sentenced to 10 years in the same case.
The jail term is the second conviction for Khan in recent months, and ensures the popular politician will remain in jail, and out of the public spotlight, ahead of next week’s parliamentary vote which will also lead to the nomination of a new prime minister.
The court was due to issue its written verdict later.
The PTI said it would challenge the decision. “We don’t accept this illegal decision,” Khan’s lawyer Naeem Panjutha posted on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
Khan aide Zulfikar Bukhari told Reuters that the legal team was given no chance to represent the former prime minister or cross examine witnesses, adding that the proceedings were carried out in jail.
Another one of Khan’s lawyers, Ali Zafar, told ARY television that given the circumstances of the trial and sentencing, the chances of the case being quashed in appeal was “100%”.
He called the conviction an attempt to weaken support for Khan. “People will now make sure they come out and vote in larger numbers,” he told Reuters.
Khan was previously sentenced to three years in a corruption case, which had already ruled him out of the election next week.
However, his legal team was hoping to get him released from jail, where he has been since August last year, but the latest conviction means that is unlikely even as the charges are contested in a higher court.
