A special court in Islamabad rejected on Thursday the post-arrest bail pleas of ousted premier Imran Khan and former federal minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.
The court constituted under the Official Secrets Act had earlier reserved its decision on this matter while granting pre-arrest bail to former Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) general-secretary Asad Umar.
During the hearing, Imran’s counsel maintained that no other leader has been subjected to political victimisation to the extent the PTI chairperson is facing. There are 180 cases lodged against him, with over 140 registered before his arrest, said the counsel.
The defence argued that the entire cabinet would have to be implicated as this matter could not be assigned to one individual while referring to meetings held by the National Security Council during which the cypher was discussed.
Imran’s lawyer contended that keeping documents safe was not the prime minister’s job but part of his principal secretary’s.
At one point during the hearing, the judge inquired about how the cypher went missing when it was a classified document. He observed that copies of the cypher held by the army chief, the DG ISI and the foreign ministry were not the same.
Questions were also raised by the defence counsels over former principal secretary Azam Khan’s whereabouts. After the completion of arguments by the counsels, the court reserved its verdict for a short while.
Later, the court rejected both bail pleas.
Imran and Qureshi remain under judicial custody with their remand extended till September 26 at the last hearing of the cypher case held yesterday (Wednesday).
