ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has sought credentials of the state counsels appointed for former prime minister Imran Khan and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in the diplomatic cipher case, as per the order of a trial court.
The court has expressed surprise as to why the trial court did not provide private counsels to the PTI leaders, who were sentenced to 10 years in prison on January 30, just over one week before the February 8 general elections. On Wednesday, a division bench comprising IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb resumed hearing the appeals filed by Imran and Qureshi against the trial court’s order.
Continuing his arguments, PTI’s lawyer Salman Safdar stated that just 11 days after the trial began, the Special Court judge, Abual Hasnat Muhammad Zulqarnain, accused the PTI lawyers of employing delaying tactics and directed the prosecution to appoint state counsels to represent the accused. He mentioned that the trial commenced on January 15, and by January 26, the trial court requested state counsels for the accused.
“The judge wrote an email stating that government lawyers should be appointed for the accused. When we returned the next day, the most important witness, Azam Khan, was coming out of the courtroom.
