Former Pak PM Imran Khan Sentenced to 10 Yrs in Jail

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan was sentenced to 10 years in jail on Tuesday, declared Pakistan state media. He was convicted and punished in the cipher case related to a leaked document.

Along with him, the former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi was also sentenced to 10 years in prison in the cipher case.

The decision was announced by special court Judge Abul Hasnat Zulqarnain during the hearing of the case held at the Adiala Jail in Rawalpind where Khan has been lodged since his arrest in August. This legal decision against Imran Khan comes a few days before the general elections in Pakistan on February 8.

“Former prime minister Imran Khan and PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) vice-president (Shah Mahmood) Qureshi have been sentenced to 10 years each inside prison in the cypher case,” a spokesman for the party told AFP.

The cipher case in which Imran Khan was jailed is related to the way he dealt with a so-called “cypher” sent by Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States. It was alleged that the US was complicit in a plot to turf Khan from office in 2022.

This Tuesday’s conviction of Imran Khan has hit Khan’s party heavily ahead of the general elections in Pakistan.