Express News stated that former Pakistan ambassador to the US Asad Majeed denied referencing “threat” or “conspiracy” in the secret cipher telegraph before a special court on Tuesday.
Former prime minister Imran Khan and PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi are being tried in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail for manipulating the cypher for political gain in March 2022, before a no-confidence motion that overthrew the PTI.
Today, Judge Abual Hasnat Muhammad Zulqarnain heard six more prosecution witnesses, including Majeed.
The Pakistan House in Washington sponsored a luncheon for US envoy Donald Lu on March 7, 2022, Majeed said.
He added both sides knew the meeting minutes were being captured and conveyed the conversation to Islamabad by cipher telegram. He said there was no “threat” or “conspiracy.”
Majeed said he was summoned to the National Security Committee (NSC), where his recommendation led to demarche to the US. He called the cypher problem a “setback” for Pakistan-US relations.
Former foreign secretary Sohail Mahmood gave his comments a day earlier, claiming he retired in September 2022. He stated the Prime Minister’s Office hadn’t returned the cipher copy to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yet.
Azam Khan, the ex-PM’s former principal secretary, told the court that Imran lost the cypher.
Azam Khan testified in court on January 18 that Imran Khan ordered his military secretary and personal staff “a number of times” to find the cipher, but he brandished a piece of paper in a public rally on March 27 “implying” it was the diplomatic cypher.
However, the former bureaucrat stated that “as he [Imran Khan] did not open or read it [in the rally], therefore, I do not know what the paper was.”
