Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
Credit: Reuters File Photo
Pakistan's former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, a close aide of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, was arrested by police from his house here on Saturday.
Qureshi, 67, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party's Vice Chairman, was taken to the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) headquarters after the arrest.
The charges leading to Qureshi's arrest were not clear but the FIA is currently interrogating incarcerated PTI chief Khan in a case related to a missing diplomatic cable which he has for long mentioned as evidence of a “foreign conspiracy” to remove him as the prime minister in April last year.
“PTI vice chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi has been illegally arrested once again,” the PTI said in social media post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Qureshi was foreign minister when the issue of the diplomatic cable erupted.
The purported cipher (secret diplomatic cable) contained an account of a meeting between US State Department officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu, and Pakistani envoy Asad Majeed Khan last year.
PTI General Secretary Omar Ayub confirmed Qureshi’s arrest by saying that he was arrested shortly after reaching home after addressing a press conference.
“Had hoped that the reign of lawlessness would have ended after the exit of the fascist PDM (Pakistan Democratic Movement) government, but it appears that this caretaker government wants to break the records of their predecessor fascist government,” Ayub said.
Earlier, Qureshi rejected media reports about a split in the party and also demanded elections on time. He also said in the presser that he had recently met foreign ambassadors recently.
Qureshi was also arrested on May 11 and released on June 6.
Of late, Khan has come under increased scrutiny following the publication of a purported copy of the secret cable by the US media outlet The Intercept, with many in the previous government led by Shehbaz Sharif pointing fingers at the PTI chief for being the source of the leak.
Former interior minister Rana Sanaullah has said that if Khan had indeed lost the copy of the cable provided to him, it would constitute a crime under the Official Secrets Act.
Khan, 70, is currently serving a three-year jail term after he was sentenced by a court in a corruption case earlier this month.