Former Pakistani PM Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison Ahead Of The Election, Lawyer: We Don't Accept This Illegal Decision

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. (Wikimedia Commons/The White House)

JAKARTA - Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Tuesday, after being convicted of leaking state secrets, just 10 days before the general election.

A special court found Khan guilty of publishing the contents of a secret cable sent by the Pakistani Ambassador in Washington DC to the government in Islamabad, the Pakistan party Tereek-e-Insaf (PTI) he leads.

PTI said it would oppose the court's decision. Khan himself said the cables related to the case were evidence of a conspiracy by the Pakistan military and the US Government to overthrow his government in 2022 after he visited Moscow just before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Washington and Pakistan's military have denied the allegations.

The former prime minister previously said the contents of the cable appeared in the media from other sources.

"We do not accept this illegal decision," Khan's lawyer Naeem Panjutha wrote on social media platform X.

Apart from Khan, former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was also sentenced to 10 years in prison in the same case.

Meanwhile, Khan's aide, Zulfikar Bukhari, said the legal team was not given the opportunity to represent the former prime minister or cross-check witnesses, adding the process was carried out in prison.

He called the punishment an attempt to weaken support for Khan.

"The public will now ensure that they attend and vote in greater numbers," he said.

This prison sentence is Khan's second sentence in recent months, ensuring he will remain in prison and not be in the public spotlight, ahead of next week's general election.

It is known that the former cricket star was previously sentenced to three years in prison in a corruption case, which ruled him out of general elections next week.

However, Khan's legal team hopes that he can be released from prison, where he has been detained since August last year. However, with this latest sentence, it means that this is unlikely even when the indictment is still being sued in a higher court.