Cypher case: Imran Khan, Shah Mahmood Qureshi granted bail by Supreme Court

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan granted bail to the founder of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and the party senior vice chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi in the cypher case.

The PTI leaders’ request for bail was considered by a three-member bench consisting of Acting Chief Justice Sardar Tariq Masood, Justice Athar Minallah, and Justice Mansoor Ali Shah. The bail was approved upon the submission of a surety bond amounting to Rs100,000.

The former Prime Minister and PTI founder had approached the Supreme Court seeking post-arrest bail, and the plea was filed on his behalf by his counsel Salman Safdar.

During the hearing, when the judges inquired about the rules allegedly violated by the PTI founder and Shah Mahmood Qureshi, prosecutor Rizwan Abbasi claimed that such rules were confidential and only disclosed to those in power.

In response, Justice Mansoor Shah questioned the secrecy of rules, and Justice Athar Minallah objected, stating that if a cypher is decoded and then shared with the government, it loses its status as a confidential document.

Justice Sardar Tariq raised a query about former PM Shehbaz Sharif’s silence on the disappearance of the cypher, given that he had chaired a National Security Committee meeting related to it.

The prosecutor explained that the original document was not presented in the session, only a copy of the decoded cypher.

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Justice Mansoor strongly objected to the FIR in the case, questioning the determination of who decided that making a decoded document public harmed US-Pakistan relations. He also raised concerns about the potential impact on Pakistan’s image in India and emphasized that similar circumstances could arise from removing prime ministers before the end of their terms.

Justice Athar Minallah noted that the documents presented by the prosecution suggested that a foreign country suffered damage, not Pakistan. He questioned whether the caretaker government wanted the PTI founder in jail, expressing concerns about the upcoming elections and asserting that the matter extended beyond the PTI founder’s rights to the rights of the people of Pakistan.

Justice Athar Minallah concluded by stating that the court, as the custodian of the basic rights of every citizen, had not found Imran Khan guilty in this case.

The cypher case originated when Imran Khan’s former principal secretary, Azam Khan, claimed that the former PM used a US cypher for political gain and to avert a no-confidence motion. Azam Khan, previously missing, resurfaced to make these claims under CrPC 164 before a magistrate, alleging that Imran Khan was excited upon seeing the cypher and saw it as a means to divert public attention from foreign involvement in a no-confidence motion. Imran Khan was accused of instructing Azam Khan to hand over the cypher, which he did.