Cipher case is like a murder case in which body is not found, IHC told

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan’s lawyer Barrister Salman Safdar told the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday that the investigating officer had filed the charge sheet in the cipher case without seeing the document, and the trial court had indicted the accused without examining the document.

Barrister Safdar asked how the IO conducted the investigation without seeing the original document. He remarked that everyone who was sent a copy of the cipher, except the president, had returned their copy after the registration of the case.

He pointed out that if other persons had not returned their copies of the cipher as well, then filing the case against only the PTI founder was a vindictive act.

The IHC’s Chief Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb were hearing the appeal against the conviction of the PTI founder and Shah Mehmood Qureshi in the cipher case.

Barrister Safdar said that the requirements of a fair trial under Article 10-A were not fulfilled in this case. He said that even the IO was not shown the document because it was a secret. The IO should have approached a magistrate, he added.

The court said that the trial court judge could also have issued an order under the Official Secrets Act to show the documents after removing all the other persons from the courtroom.

The lawyer said that the name of the case is “cipher” but it is actually “suffering” that has been happening. He said that the instant case is similar to a murder case in which the body of the deceased is not found.

He also said that this case was of foreign affairs but was hijacked by the Ministry of Interior, and that instead of the Foreign Office, the interior ministry became the complainant.

Barrister Safdar said the prosecution says that if the document is not returned, the security system is compromised. He said Khan and Qureshi are accused of making the cipher text public.

It was also said that the cipher was twisted for their own purposes, he added, but neither the original text is in front of the court nor the one that was twisted. How can a comparison be made without the original text being in front of the court, he asked. He said that the FIR was filed 17 months after the prime minister’s copy was not returned. The prosecution claimed that copies of the cipher went to five people, he added.

He also said that the prosecution has a document from its own witness that says the cipher went to nine people, and not five. This is the cipher security system, he pointed out. The counsel said that in March 2022 the meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC) was held under the chairmanship of the appellant, and the committee termed the cipher message as interference in internal affairs and intolerable.

However, he added, 22 days later another meeting of the NSC was held under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who confirmed the meeting of the previous committee, but added that there was no external conspiracy in it.

Justice Aurangzeb asked what is meant by “conspiracy”. He pointed out that in the first press release there was no mention of a conspiracy. He asked if it is the same conspiracy that the accused mentioned in his public meeting. The hearing will continue on Thursday (today).