ISLAMABAD/LAHORE: Once more, Imran Khan, the former prime minister and chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has acknowledged misplacing the cipher, explaining that he is unable to remember its whereabouts.
Reports indicate that the ousted prime minister, who was removed from office via a no-confidence motion in April last year, faced questioning during an interrogation in Attock jail.
The inquiry was conducted by a three-member team from the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) Cybercrime Circle, led by Deputy Director Ayyaz Khan.
Sources reveal that the investigation team grilled Khan regarding the missing cipher case. They further note that the PTI chief cooperated throughout the hour-long inquiry with patience.
However, he refuted the claim that the paper he brandished at a public gathering last year was the cipher.
“The paper I gestured in the public were cabinet meeting minutes, and not cipher,” the former premier claimed.
According to sources, he also asserted that retaining the document was within his rights as the prime minister. However, he was unable to explain why he revealed it as the cipher during the public event.
“It was, probably, the last session of investigation of cipher issue,” sources said. They further added that Individuals involved in the case investigation would initiate mutual meetings to reach a conclusion.
The sources stated that investigators would conclude the inquiry into the cipher issue in the coming week and submit the challan to a court of law.
Simultaneously, Khan contested the dismissal of his nine bail applications in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Saturday.
Legal Battles and FIA Case Unfold Amid Imran Khan’s Bail Denials
Following the denial of bail requests in cases related to incidents such as the May 9 riots, attacks on the Judicial Complex, and fake accounts, he, through his lawyer Salman Safdar, lodged nine applications with the IHC.
Of these applications, sessions court rejected three, and anti-terrorism court (ATC) dismissed remaining three.
The PTI lawyer, in petitions presented to the IHC, urged the court to declare the decisions rejecting the bail pleas as null and void.
Additionally, the lawyer sought IHC guidance to compel trial courts to re-evaluate the cases based on their merits and to prevent the police from arresting the PTI chairman in connection with these nine cases.
Khan had previously filed a petition against IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq with the Supreme Court. The petition, submitted by his counsel Latif Khosa on his behalf, invoked Article 186-A and called for transferring his cases from the IHC to the Lahore or Peshawar high courts.
In a separate development, the FIA registered a case against PTI leaders for allegedly launching a false campaign against state institutions on social media.
The FIA Cybercrime Circle initiated the case against former finance minister Hammad Azhar, Musarrat Jamshed Cheema, former National Assembly deputy speaker Qasim Suri, former Punjab governor Omer Sarfraz Cheema, Senator Azam Swati, Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party’s Ali Zaidi, and former PTI senior vice president Fawad Chaudhry.
The agency summoned the implicated individuals for investigation, but none of them engaged in the inquiries. Subsequently, the agency conducted its own investigations.
The sources asserted that the FIA, during the inquiry process, amassed sufficient evidence leading to the registration of a case against them.
