Imran Khan, Former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Acquitted of Leaking State Secrets

A branch of the High Court of Pakistan acquitted Imran Khan, the former and imprisoned Prime Minister of the country, of the crime of leaking state secrets, but he will remain in prison due to other convictions. Leaking state secrets was one of three crimes for which the former Prime Minister of Pakistan was convicted in a trial ahead of the general elections in February. Mr. Khan has denied all these charges, claiming that the accusations against him are politically motivated and aimed at preventing his return to the Prime Minister's office. According to AFP, the decision of the Islamabad High Court, announced on Monday, June 3, was made by a vote of two judges of the court. Salman Safdar, one of the lawyers of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, founded by Khan, told the news agency outside the courthouse: 'This is the first case of political victimization against Imran Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi that is being overturned.' In this case, Imran Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi, his foreign minister, were accused of publicly revealing a confidential diplomatic message sent by the Pakistani ambassador in Washington to Islamabad in 2022. The Pakistani court sentenced Imran Khan to 14 years in prison just before the elections. Following a no-confidence vote in the Pakistani parliament in 2022 that led to his ousting from the Prime Minister's office, Khan claimed that the public disclosure of this diplomatic message indicated a conspiracy by the U.S. government to remove him from power. The U.S. government and the Pakistani military denied this claim. Khan, who has been sentenced to seven years in prison for violating Sharia law in another case, will remain in jail. His conviction in that case was due to not adhering to the required time interval between his divorce from his previous wife and his marriage to his new wife, Bushra Bibi. He has also been convicted of embezzlement for receiving gifts during his premiership from 2018 to 2022. Although his 14-year prison sentence was suspended by higher judicial authorities in April this year, his convictions in these two cases remain intact. Following severe disagreements between Imran Khan and the powerful military commanders of Pakistan, he was ousted from the Prime Minister's office by a parliamentary no-confidence vote. Mr. Khan launched an unprecedented campaign in opposition against the military commanders. Experts believe that Pakistan's political system is a mixed system in which military commanders have significant influence over the seemingly democratic management of the country. Following his ousting from the Prime Minister's office and attempts to regain power through participation in elections, Khan faced over 200 charges and legal cases that made his participation in political competitions nearly impossible. Despite these obstacles, candidates from his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, independently participated in the February elections, which were marred by numerous allegations of vote fraud, and secured the most seats in the Pakistani parliament. However, a broad coalition of other political parties, reportedly under the influence of the Pakistani military, prevented the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party from forming a government.