An audio leak allegedly of former premier Imran Khan and his principal secretary at the time, Azam Khan, surfaced on Wednesday in which the two were discussing the diplomatic cypher.
The purported audio file starts midway through a conversation between the two and is titled ‘Story of the cypher conspiracy part-1’.
“Now we have to play with this. Don’t take America’s name, just play with this,” the PTI chief says allegedly in the audio clip, to which a second voice claimed to be Azam’s advises that a meeting be held on the topic first.
The second voice then adds that whatever Qureshi (then FM) reads out in the meeting, “will be changed in the copy” and then “I will make the minutes that the foreign secretary has prepared this”.
The voice further states that the analysis would be conducted and converted into minutes “as we want” so that “it becomes part of the record”. “The minutes will be under my hand so it is not like they will draft the minutes on their own.”.
He is then asked by a voice, allegedly of Imran, who else would be attending the meeting, besides the two of them, Qureshi and (foreign secretary) Sohail.
His question is met with an affirmative, “That is all”. “Let’s do this tomorrow only,” the PTI chief supposedly responds.
“We need to do this so things are on the record. The consulate is for the state. When he is reading it out loud, I will copy it down so it is on record that this thing really did happen,” Azam explains further.