IHC puts various question to FIA prosecutor in cipher case

Source: The Nation

ISLAMABAD - During the hearing in appeals of former prime minister Imran Khan and former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi against their convictions in the cipher case, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Prosecutor Thursday stated before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) that the Cipher is an accountable classified document.

A special bench of the IHC comprising Chief Justice of IHC Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb conducted hearing in the appeals moved by the former prime minister and ex-foreign minister against their convictions in the cipher.

During the proceedings, FIA prosecutor Hamid Ali Shah said that a cipher is an accountable classified document. He also presented the booklet regarding the cipher guidelines and informed the bench about the decoding procedure of a cipher according to the booklet.

The IHC Chief Justice asked when was this booklet last updated. Shah told that the current manual is from 2003. The judge further asked whether these guidelines were prepared after the creation of Pakistan. The counsel replied that the same were belonged to the pre-independence era but there some changes were made in it in 1964.

Justice Miangul Hassan said that the cipher was sent by Pakistani ambassador Asad Majeed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but the court has to look at four things in this case, did the copy of the cipher reach the accused or not? Was the document received by the accused in physical form or not? He said to the FIA Prosecutor that you just said that the text of the cipher was made public, where is the document that was made public? Shah said that he will tell the court about it on later stage.

The bench asked that where is the record of documents related to the cipher text? The judge said that copy of the document was not presented in the court record. He added that we neither know this document nor it is on the court record.

Justice Aurangzeb remarked that you are saying that this witness said this about the document and the other witness said that but the document is not on the record. He added that it is like that someone was killed as he was hit with an axe in the chest or he was shot dead and the dead body is lying there but the dead body could not be shown. This was made public and that was made public but what is that has made public? Shah said that he would present arguments in this connection later.

The bench also said that the word classified in written on the book of Cipher Guidelines but nothing you have read from the classified book is so secret. The FIA counsel said that the cipher was in a crypto form and second is that a secret document number was also attached to it.

The FIA Prosecutor argued that high court's decision to reject the plea to declare the cipher case null and void was not challenged. The PTI lawyer said that they had challenged the joint decision before the Supreme Court and he will tell the court about it on the next hearing.

Later, the bench deferred hearing of the case till Tuesday for the further proceedings.