After an arduous legal fight, a Pakistani court on Monday acquitted former Prime Minister Imran Khan on charges related to his handling of a confidential intelligence cable, known within the Pakistani government as a cypher.
Khan’s acquittal by the Islamabad High Court is a major victory for the former prime minister and his supporters, coming on the heels of a suspended sentence in a separate corruption case.
The ruling leaves Khan behind bars on precisely one charge: namely, that he and his third wife Bushra Bibi entered into an “un-Islamic marriage,” a crime for which Khan and Bibi are serving seven-year sentences.
The court, both during the hearing and in its ruling, dove into the details of Bibi’s menstrual cycle, ultimately rejecting her claim that three cycles had passed between her divorce and her marriage to Khan. Instead, the court relied on the word of her ex-husband.
Asked by The Intercept at a briefing, State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said the case and its merits were none of the United States’ business.
“We’ve addressed the question of Imran Khan many times,” Miller said. “The legal proceedings against him are something for the Pakistani courts to decide.”
Pressed on whether it was truly the case that Bibi’s menstrual cycles were a matter for the courts, Miller said that perhaps a Pakistani court will toss out this conviction just as they did the cypher case.
The overturning of the so-called cypher case was a blow to the Pakistani government’s contention that Khan was a traitor to his country, and bolsters his supporters’ position that the charges against the imprisoned former prime minister are politically motivated.
Khan and his ex-Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had previously been sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly mishandling the secret document, including Khan’s alleged brandishing a paper copy of it at a political rally.
The cypher has long since been a central piece of drama in Pakistan’s political wrangling. Khan had claimed in several instances, even when still prime minister, that the cypher revealed U.S. involvement in his removal from power in a no-confidence vote in 2022.
In 2023, the cypher was provided to The Intercept by a source in the Pakistani military. The document showed that during Khan’s time in office, U.S. State Department officials had threatened the then-Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. about damaged ties between the two countries if Khan remained in power. Shortly after the meeting, a vote of no-confidence in Parliament advanced, a move orchestrated by the powerful Pakistani military that succeeded in removing Khan from office.
Since then, Khan and his supporters have been in an escalating conflict with the military, which has led to widespread crackdowns, killings, and torture, as well as a ban on Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI. Khan himself was imprisoned on an array of charges.
The State Department has remained muted on the crackdown on democracy in Pakistan, including after February elections marred by extensive and brazen fraud.
Despite Khan’s imprisonment and a general ban on his party, candidates associated with PTI did resoundingly well in the vote. Following exit polls that seemed to show PTI-affiliated politicians sailing to victory, official announcements began to pour in that the candidates were losing. Amid allegations of election rigging by the military at the regional level, a coalition of opposition parties took power and was quickly recognized by the U.S.
The charges against Khan have now almost all fallen apart, save for an allegation of legal impropriety in Khan’s marriage to Bibi.
The court, in its ruling, writes that her ex-husband tried to prevent his then-wife from visiting Khan, saying he “tried to stop her by force and during which hard words and even abuses were also exchanged but of no avail.”
The court, in its ruling, also approvingly reproduced her ex-husband’s antisemitic conspiracy theories, noting that “complainant believes that sister of respondent No.02” — Khan’s wife — “who resides in UAE has strong connection with Jewish Lobby.”
Bibi’s ex-husband, according to the ruling, also complained he was denied his right of “rujuh” — which refers to a husband getting their wife back in the initial period after a divorce. “He pointed out that under the law and ‘Shariah,’ the complainant has a right to have ‘Rujuh’ to his wife,” the ruling says, “but he was deprived of such right by the respondents.”
