An anti-terrorism court ordered the jail authorities on Tuesday to keep PTI chief Imran Khan in judicial lockup and produce him before it on August 30.
“That accused Imran Khan is hereby ordered for judicial remand,” said an official statement from the special court established to hear the cases filed under the Official Secrets Act. The statement was issued by anti-terrorism court in Islamabad judge Abulhasnat Zulqarnain.
He would be kept in jail pertaining to a first information report registered under sections 5 and 9 of the Official Secrets Act, 1923.
The statement was issued moments after the Islamabad High Court suspended his three-year sentence in the Toshakhana criminal case.
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Khan is detained in Attock Jail, established 100 years ago on the outskirts of historical Attock city, around 60 kilometres (40 miles) west of the capital, Islamabad. He was arrested on August 5 after a district and sessions court found him guilty of “corrupt practices” in a case pertaining to the selling of state gifts, known as the Toshakhana case.
“You are hereby directed to keep him in judicial lockup and produce him on August 30, 2023, before this court,” the statement said on Tuesday.
It merits here to mention that PTI chief Imran Khan and party leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi were named in an FIR registered on August 5 under the Official Secrets Act.
The development came after American magazine The Intercept published a news item which claimed to have the cipher, a diplomatic cable which the former prime minister held as proof of regime change, which had reportedly gone missing from Khan’s possession.
The complaint was registered under sections 5 and 9 of the Official Secrets Act, 1923, read with Section 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).
They have been accused of wrongful communication/use of official secret information and illegal retention of a cipher telegram (an official secret document) with mala fide intention.
