Ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan acquitted in state secrets case, but to stay in jail

ISLAMABAD — A high court in Pakistan overturned jailed former prime minister Imran Khan's conviction on charges of leaking state secrets, his lawyer and his party said on June 3, but Khan will remain in prison for now due to a conviction in another case.

Khan, 71, had been sentenced to 10 years in prison by a lower court on charges of making public a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan's ambassador in Washington in 2022. He has been in jail since August 2023.

He had challenged the conviction in Islamabad High Court, which said in an order on Monday that, an "instant appeal is allowed", adding Imran Khan was acquitted of the charges.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Khan's foreign minister during his tenure from 2018-2022, was also acquitted of the charges, in what is a major victory for the jailed leader.

"Thank God, the sentence is overturned," a spokesman for legal affairs from Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, Naeem Panjutha, said in a post on the X social media platform shortly after the Islamabad High Court announced its decision.

Khan has said the classified cable was proof of a conspiracy by the Pakistan military and US government to topple his government in 2022 after he visited Moscow just before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Washington and Pakistan's military deny that accusation.

The state secrets case was one of four in which Khan was convicted just ahead of Pakistan's national election in February. In two other of those cases the sentences have since been suspended while he appeals.

But despite the acquittal on June 3, Khan, a former cricket star, will remain in prison serving a seven-year sentence over another case relating to his marriage to his third wife, Mrs Bushra Khan, also known as Ms Bushra