ALBAWABA - A Pakistan high court on Monday overturned a treason conviction against former prime minister Imran Khan in a case linked to leaking state secrets.
Khan is still in prison serving a seven-year term for violating Islamic law by marrying his wife Bushra Bibi too soon after their divorce. He has also been found guilty of corruption for gifts received during his tenure as premier from 2018 to 2022. His 14-year term was suspended in April, but the conviction remains.
"This is the first big case which was part of the political victimization against Imran Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi which has been dashed to the ground," Salman Safdar, a lawyer for Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, told AFP outside of court.
Khan was convicted, along with his former foreign secretary Qureshi, of disclosing a confidential cable transmitted to Islamabad by Pakistan's ambassador in Washington in 2022.
He had used the cipher to claim that the US had conspired to remove him from office in 2022 when he was removed by the opposition following a no-confidence vote.
Khan was overthrown by a parliamentary no-confidence vote after falling out with the senior generals, and even in opposition, he mounted an unparalleled campaign of disobedience against them.
Analysts refer to Pakistan as a "hybrid regime," in which the military establishment holds enormous authority to shape the path of purportedly democratic politics.
