RAWALPINDI: The Special Court constituted under the Official Secrets Act today indicted former prime minister and founding chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Imran Khan and former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi in the cipher case.
Judge Abual Hasnat Mohammad Zulqarnain was to frame charges on both PTI leaders on Tuesday, but he deferred the indictment for a day. The legal team representing the PTI stalwarts, meanwhile, submitted half a dozen applications against the notification of the jail trial, distribution of copies of challan and denying the media and general public access to the court.
Last month an Islamabad High Court division bench, comprising Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb and Justice Saman Rafat Imtiaz, had trashed the entire proceedings in the cipher case, noting ‘loopholes’ in conducting in-camera proceedings while barring media coverage.
While the special court started the de-novo trial of the two in cipher case after IHC’s decision, the jail authorities allowed only three to four reporters of private television channels to cover the proceedings inside Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.
A day earlier, counsel for Imran Khan, Barrister Salman Safdar filed a petition before the IHC against the indictment process.
He informed the judge about the petition pending before the IHC, but the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) special prosecutor said that the court may continue the proceedings since there was no restraining order issued so far.
The judge then disposed of PTI’s applications and decided to indict Imran Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Wednesday (today). Outside the Adiala Jail, Qureshi’s daughter Mehar Bano Qureshi told the media that the jail administration had placed a glass wall between the detained PTI leaders and media.
She also questioned the ‘so-called public’ brought into the courtroom to witness the proceedings adding that proceedings in the cipher case were still not open to public and media.
