ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan Saturday approached the Islamabad High Court (IHC) seeking post-arrest bail in the cipher case.
The former prime minister is currently incarcerated at the Attock jail. The special court, which has been established to hear cases filed under the Official Secrets Act, had rejected his bail plea. The cipher case pertains to a diplomatic document which allegedly went missing from Imran Khan’s possession.
Imran Khan and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi have been in jail in connection with the case while the role of PTI leader Asad Umar and former principal secretary Azam Khan is to be determined during the course of the investigation.
While Umar was granted pre-arrest bail on Thursday, Imran and Qureshi were denied post-arrest bails. Their judicial remand will complete on September 26. Today, Imran filed the petition through his lawyer Barrister Salman Safdar. The State and Interior Ministry Secretary Yousuf Naseem Khokar have been named as respondents in the case.
The petition urged the IHC to grant Imran post-arrest bail till the final disposal of the cipher case “to meet the ends of justice”.
The plea further said that nearly 200 criminal cases have been filed against the former prime minister out of which “almost 40 cases are [on] charges of corruption, murder, sedition, mutiny, foreign funding, NAB (National Accountability Bureau) reference and Toshakhana reference”.
