Pakistan: Court Orders Jailed Imran Khan to Appear in Public Trial

Facts

• Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan is slated to make his first public appearance since his imprisonment in August after a special court on Thursday ordered authorities to produce him and jailed former Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi for trial on Nov. 28.¹
• Khan and Qureshi were indicted on Oct. 23 in the cipher case, which concerns a diplomatic document that reportedly contained state secrets and allegedly went missing from Khan's possession.²
• On Tuesday, the Islamabad High Court declared that the case's trial in jail due to alleged security risks was illegal and ordered it to be re-started in a public court.³
• A day later, Pakistan's Supreme Court accepted the bail plea of cricketer-turned-politician, who hopes to be freed to contest next year's general election. However, no date has been set for the hearing yet.⁴
• Khan was charged with misusing the contents of an alleged confidential diplomatic letter during a rally last year claiming that his government was ousted due to a US conspiracy. If found guilty, he faces a potential death sentence.⁵
• Though his party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, and the legal team insist that the controversial March 7, 2022, cipher had been declassified, a Pakistani FIA [Federal Investigation Agency] probe rejected the claim after examining the cabinet meetings record.⁶

Sources: ¹Al Jazeera, ²DAWN, ³Reuters, ⁴New York Post, ⁵Jurist and ⁶The News.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by The Friday Times. The prolonged incarceration of Imran Khan illustrates so well the contempt for human rights in Pakistan since his ousting that even some politicians in America — the very nation that sought to overthrow him — have expressed their concern over his case, urging US Pres. Joe Biden to halt military aid to Islamabad. The latest court orders indicate that this outrage may be about to finally come to an end.
• Narrative B, as provided by GEO. Though Khan's jail trial has been declared illegal and void, it's crucial to assert that the problem was a mere technicality related to the procedure adopted for the cipher case trial to be held in prison. Pakistani laws allow the trial court to decide where to conduct the proceedings, including jail premises, especially if security concerns are similar to Khan's trial.

Predictions