During the cipher case proceedings, Imran Khan might be in for a surprise from former Army Chief General (r) Qamar Javed Bajwa. “I will include General Bajwa and US embassy officials as witnesses in the case,” Khan had stated in an unofficial interview with media at the prior hearing of the cipher case. Bajwa might not let Khan down, according to a source who recently spoke with the former army chief about the matter, and the general is willing to testify in the cipher case. But in order to do so, he will need authorization from military authorities.
“General Bajwa did everything on Donald Lu’s directives,” according to Imran’s allegations. This accusation contradicts the testimony of every prosecution witness, including the former secretary of foreign affairs and the former ambassador of Pakistan to the US, who sent a cipher to the foreign ministry as a result of his interaction with US diplomat Donuld Lu, as is allegedly customary in such cases.
The National Security Committee of the cabinet also resolved to send a demarche after the Pakistani envoy suggested that Pakistan submit one to Washington due to the cipher’s insulting content, which was related to the conversation between Lu and the ambassador. The cipher was noted by the NSC twice: once under Imran Khan’s administration and again under Shehbaz Sharif’s. The NSC was unable to uncover any proof of conspiracy on either occasion.
Imran Khan, on the other hand, has insisted that he was the victim of a plot to overthrow the current government. The former prime minister first accused the United States of plotting to overthrow his administration. Subsequently, he asserted that the plot was truly exported from Pakistan. Additionally, he claimed that Gen. Bajwa had hired Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the US, citing quotes from Haqqani from earlier this year that stated, “Haqqani was hired to campaign against me.” As a member of the Haqqani team, a CIA agent engaged in “lobbying” against the prime minister in office.
Remarks made by prominent prosecution witnesses in the cipher case, in contrast to Khan’s claims, make the former prime minister’s alleged criminality much more serious on three counts: a) using the secret communication for his political gain; b) damaging Pakistan’s relations with the US; and c) misplacing or failing to return the document.
The FIA’s witness statements contradict Imran Khan’s assertion that there was a conspiracy to overthrow his government through a regime change; rather, they support the theory that the PTI chairman interpreted the cipher in order to further his political ambitions and undermine the no-confidence vote against his government.
In his testimony, Azam Khan, the PM’s secretary at the time, said that Imran Khan had read the cipher and thought it was a mistake by the US official. He also recommended that it be utilized to effectively spin a story against state institutions and opposition parties. The former prime minister reportedly said that the no-confidence motion against him could be defeated using the cipher telegram, according to Azam Khan.
According to the former PM secretary, Imran Khan discussed crafting a political narrative in which opposition parties were working with the US and the establishment to overthrow his administration. According to Azam Khan, the PM took a copy of the cipher from him but never gave it back. The former prime minister said he would seek for it and that he had misplaced it when questioned about it. The prime minister was informed by Azam Khan that the cipher was a deciphered confidential document whose contents could not be revealed or discussed in public.
In his statement at the time, Sohail Mehmood, the foreign secretary, expressed his shock at seeing Imran Khan and Shah Mehmood Qureshi use the cipher in a public meeting for their own political and personal gain, not realizing how seriously they had compromised the nation’s entire cipher security system.
Asad Majeed Khan, the former ambassador of Pakistan to the United States, discussed his meeting with Donald Lu and the letter he sent to the Foreign Office in Islamabad afterward in his statement. He claimed that in the correspondence he submitted to Islamabad, he only conveyed what he and Lu had discussed and that neither the word “threat” nor the word “conspiracy” was used.
Majeed claimed to have proposed that the US be given a demarche in both Islamabad and Washington. He also brought up the National Security Committee sessions, whereby the cipher matter was addressed and it was determined that there was no foreign conspiracy to overthrow the current government in Pakistan.
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