“This is the first big case which was part of the political victimisation against Imran Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi which has been dashed to the ground,” Salman Safdar, a lawyer for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, said outside court.
“We will celebrate this victory,” another of his lawyers, Ali Zafar, said in a TV interview, adding that the other cases faced by Khan would result in acquittals too.
Khan was convicted along with Qureshi, his former foreign secretary, of making public a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington in 2022.
He had touted the cipher as evidence that the United States had conspired to force him from power in 2022, when a no-confidence vote saw him replaced by the opposition.
“Thank God, the sentence is overturned,” a spokesman for legal affairs from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, Naeem Panjutha, said in a post on the X social media platform.
The United States and Pakistan’s military have denied the accusation.
Khan remains jailed on a seven-year sentence for breaking Islamic law by marrying his wife Bushra Bibi too soon after her divorce.
He has also been found guilty of graft over gifts he received in his time as premier between 2018 and 2022.
While his 14-year sentence was suspended in April, the conviction still stands.
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Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan jailed for 14 years ahead of elections
Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan jailed for 14 years ahead of elections
Khan was ousted by a parliamentary no-confidence vote after falling out with the top generals, and in opposition he waged an unprecedented campaign of defiance against them.
Analysts regard Pakistan as a “hybrid regime”, where the military establishment wields immense power to determine the course of ostensibly democratic politics.
Khan later found himself tangled in more than 200 court cases, massively complicating his attempts to mount a comeback.
Despite that, candidates loyal to PTI secured more seats than any other party in the February elections – which were marred by allegations of vote tampering.
A broad coalition of parties considered more pliable to the influence of the military kept the MPs from power.g to his marriage to his third wife, Bushra Khan, contravening Islamic traditions.
He has been at odds with the country’s powerful military, accusing it of targeting him and his party. The military denies this and has called on Khan and his supporters to be tried for attacking state installations during violent protests against Khan’s initial arrest last year.
Khan and his party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, were banned from contesting the February election, but candidates backed by the jailed leader still won the most seats. They did not have the numbers to form a government, which was instead led by an alliance of his rivals led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.