ISLAMABAD, June 4 – A high court in Pakistan acquitted jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday of charges of leaking state secrets, his lawyer and his party said, but Khan will remain in prison for now due to a conviction in another case.
Khan, 71, was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a lower court on charges of making public a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington in 2022.
Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Khan’s foreign minister from 2018 to 2022, was also acquitted of the charges.
“This is the first big case which was part of the political victimization against Imran Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi, which has been dashed to the ground,” Salman Safdar, a lawyer for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, told reporters outside the court.
Khan remains jailed on a seven-year sentence for breaking Islamic law by marrying his wife, Bushra Bibi, too soon after her divorce.
He has also been found guilty of graft over gifts he received during his tenure as premier between 2018 and 2022.
