Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan gets 10-year jail term for exposing official secrets

Former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, was sentenced to a 10-year prison term for leaking state secrets by a Pakistani court on Tuesday, according to Khan's media team. This conviction comes ahead of the country's general elections due in 10 days, marking his second conviction in recent times.

The former national cricket captain became Pakistan’s prime minister in 2018. Now 71 years old, Khan was removed from office by political opponents in 2022, and later arrested in May of 2023 and has been serving a three-year jail term on a corruption conviction.

Khan and his supporters have decried the charges as politically motivated.

The allegations revolve around Khan's public disclosure of a classified cable sent by Pakistan's ambassador in Washington to the government in Islamabad. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Khan’s political outfit, conveyed that both Khan and ex-foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi were given a decade-long sentence each by a special court. The party labeled the ruling a "sham case" and voiced its intent to contest the decision. 

"This is an illegal decision and we do not accept it", stated Naeem Panjutha, Khan's legal representative, on social media platform X. This recent verdict is a second blow to Khan, who was previously sentenced to a three-year term in a corruption case. This earlier conviction had already disqualified him from the upcoming elections.

Despite his disqualification, his legal team aimed for his release from prison, where he has been held out of public view since August last year. However, the new conviction likely diminishes such prospects, even as the charges are set to be fought out in a higher court.

Ever since his removal from power following a vote of no confidence in 2022, Khan has been besieged by numerous legal challenges. Khan asserts that the disclosed cable substantiates a collusion theory between the Pakistani military and U.S. government to oust his government post his Moscow visit – a claim refuted by Washington and the Pakistani military. The former premier has previously stated that the cable's contents were already made available in the media from other sources.

Khan remains extremely popular across the country of 230 million. After his arrest in 2023, the PTI and supporters of Khan called for shutting down Pakistan, blocking roads and staging mass protests to demand his release.