In fresh trouble for former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan, he was charged with leaking classified documents on Monday, as reported by the news agency AFP. A prosecutor said that this charge carries a prison term of up to 14 years. Khan has been tangled in a slew of legal cases since he was ousted from power last year. The former Pakistan cricketer has claimed that these cases are designed to stop him from contesting the upcoming elections in January 2024.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief was jailed in August for three years over graft, but when his sentence was overturned, he was instead kept in custody on the far more serious charge of sharing state documents. "He has been indicted today, and the charge was openly read out," Shah Khawar of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said outside Adiala Jail, where Khan is being held, as quoted by AFP.
The case pertains to a cable that Khan touted as proof that he was ousted as part of a US conspiracy backed by the powerful military establishment, according to a report by the FIA. The United States and Pakistan's military have denied the claim. The vice chairman of Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, a former foreign minister, has also been indicted over the case.
A PTI spokesman said both men were charged under the colonial-era Official Secrets Act in a trial "conducted within the court premises with no access to the public or media," as reported by AFP. "We are going to challenge it," Khan's lawyer, Umar Khan Niazi, told reporters. Khan's lawyers say the crime he has been charged with carries a possible 14-year prison term and, in the most extreme circumstances, the death penalty.
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