ISLAMABAD – Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf chief Imran Khan continues to face back-to-back blows and now his former principal secretary Azam Khan has revealed that the former PM staged cypher drama to dodge a no-trust move.
The former top bureaucrat recorded a confessional statement before magistrate, and blamed Imran Khan for playing with US cypher to push a false narrative against the establishment, and PDM alliance members.
Azam, who went missing, maintained that Khan orchestrated a planned conspiracy for his political gains.
He hurled allegations that members of Khan’s cabinet planned the cipher controversy and everyone was fully aware about how cypher could be used. He revealed that cypher had nothing to do with conspiracy and it was only used to create a political narrative against opponents.
Azam, in the written statement, maintained that Imran Khan was excited to see the cipher and called it a ‘blunder’ by the US, and used it to create a mirage while facing no trust motion.
He further maintained that Imran Khan asked him to hand over the cipher which was in violation of rules and it was not returned to Foreign Office.
Last year, an audio leak of Imran Khan and Azam Khan surfaced 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’.
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.
In another major blow, Asad Umar steps down as PTI’s secretary general
