Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and another of his party officials have been sentenced to 10 years in prison each after finding them guilty of revealing state secrets to the United States in violation of the country's Official Secrets Act, specifically, the sensitive diplomatic document dubbed as the Cipher.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Party spokesperson Zulfiqar Bukhari was cited by the Associated Press when he said that the court announced the verdict for Khan and his deputy, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, at a prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. The sentence would be an addition to Khan's three-year prison sentence in a graft case, and there are more than 150 cases left against him.
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Khan's Sentencing a Form of Electoral Disqualification
Khan, a cricket star-turned-politician, was previously ousted through a no-confidence vote in the Pakistani Parliament back in April 2022.
The latest development came ahead of the country's general elections on Feb. 8. Khan's criminal conviction would bar him from running from office, but it does not stop him from being a powerful political figure due to his grassroots following and anti-establishment rhetoric. He previously said that the legal cases against him were a plot to disqualify him ahead of the vote.
Since Khan's arrest in May 2023, Pakistan has seen violent demonstrations
The country's independent human rights commission said that there would only be a small chance of a free and fair parliamentary election due to what they called "pre-poll rigging," as well as the rejection of the candidacies of Khan and senior figures from his party.
