— Audio clip suggests cipher took unofficial route to reach ex-PM
— Clip confirms PTI govt removed following ‘exact same script’
ISLAMABAD: 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 cipher.
The purported audio file starts midway through a conversation between the two and is titled ‘Story of the cipher 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.”.
The diplomatic cipher received from Pakistan’s embassy in Washington — and is at the centre of the foreign conspiracy claim made by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) — was initially hidden from then-prime minister Imran Khan and then-foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, a leaked conversation has revealed.
The longstanding claim about the origins of the contentious vote of no-confidence held against Khan in April made by his party now in opposition came true in the fourth conversation in a series of leaked audios linked to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), this time between Khan and his then-principal secretary Azam Khan, on Wednesday.
Earlier, at least three conversations — allegedly of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and key members of the government, as well as his niece Maryam Nawaz — were released on the darknet over the weekend.
Faced with a tight no-confidence vote that saw him ousted after defections from his party, Khan in March told a rally of his supporters the United States was conspiring against him after he visited Moscow in February.
He met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in February, on the day Russian forces entered neighbouring Ukraine.
The White House, however, has denied that the United States sought to remove Khan from power.
In the audio clip, the first of the two voices, believed to be of Khan, is heard saying: “Ok, so now let’s just play with it [the cipher]. We don’t need to name [the US]. See, we can say the date [a back date] was already there.”
4) This audio suggests that there was cypher, sent by amb Asad, wasn’t not probably allowed to reach PM office.
‘Someone else’ got hold of the cypher and most probably PM Imran Khan was verbally told about it. pic.twitter.com/LdWY22CQkn
— OSINT Insider (@OSINT_Insider) September 28, 2022
At this point in the conversation, the second voice, believed to be of Azam, the secretary, is heard, suggesting holding a meeting on the cipher. “Sir, I was thinking we should hold a meeting on this [cipher]. If you remember, the ambassador mentioned at the end of the letter that we should issue a demarche. If you still don’t want to issue a demarche […] I thought at night, […] how can we cover the matter?”
“Let’s call a meeting of [foreign minister] Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Foreign Secretary [Sohail Mahmood]. There, we will ask Shah Mahmood Qureshi to read out the contents of the letter. So whatever he [Qureshi] will tell us, I will type it down and convert it into [meeting] minutes […] that the foreign minister and the foreign secretary said this and that.
After this, we will analyse it as we deem fit and after that, it becomes part of the government record.”
This audio confirms:
1) Originality of cipher
2) There was no copy of the cipher at PM office, which they got later
1) The PM knew about the cipher, but he did not have access to it.
4) There was an external conspiracy involved@ImranKhanPTI was right#سائفر_ایک_حقیقت_ہے pic.twitter.com/3JecGJYUnw— Chocolate 🇵🇸🇵🇰 (@jiminshiiii_iii) September 28, 2022
Azam then elaborated the analysis would conclude the cypher “is a threat. It is called a threat in diplomatic language”. He then added that “minutes are in my hands […] we will draft the minutes”.
Here, the person on the other end, purportedly Khan, is heard asking who would be called to the meeting. “Shah Mahmood, you, me and Sohail?”
Just these, the other person, apparently Khan, said. “Let’s do it tomorrow,” Khan replied. In turn, Azam is heard explaining that following this plan, “things will become a part of the record.
Moreover, he suggested that “you [Khan] call the foreign secretary so that it doesn’t remain political and becomes a part of the bureaucratic record”. To this, Khan pointed out that an ambassador has written the cypher, implying that it should already be a part of the bureaucratic record since it has been written by an envoy.
“But we don’t have a copy of it. How did they [Foreign Office] release it?” Khan wondered.
PTI: LEAK PROVED CLAIM IMRAN KEPT IN DARK ON MESSAGE
Responding to the communication, various leaders of the PTI claimed it “proved” that the cypher had been hidden from Khan.
In a tweet, Hammad Azhar alleged Khan’s government had been removed following the “exact same script” as was given in the cypher. “I think the cypher should be released now and the people of Pakistan should decide whether it was a conspiracy or even more than that,” he added.
When Imran Khan was PM, his govt was removed following the exact same script as was given in the cipher. Let that sink in.
I think the cipher should be released now and the people of Pakistan should decide whether it was a conspiracy or even more than that. https://t.co/kCpw8WzPEr— Hammad Azhar (@Hammad_Azhar) September 28, 2022
Understandably, no party leader has sought to reject the contents of the audio as manipulated or falsified, suggesting it is a genuine conversation.
PTI ENDORSES PARTY CHIEF’S CALL FOR ‘LEAKING’ DIPLOMATIC CYPHER TOO
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders have endorsed party chief Imran Khan’s stance on his purported audio leak, in which he could be heard discussing the ‘foreign conspiracy’ cypher.
The former prime minister following the release of the clip, said it was a good thing that the alleged conversation between him and his principal secretary at the time, Azam Khan, came to light.
He accused Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the ruling party of leaking the audio and said, “well done”.
A tweet from the party’s official account quoted Imran as calling for the cypher to be leaked too.
The PTI’s senior vice president Fawad Chaudhry said that “the new leaks only confirm that efforts were made to hide the US cipher from the [former] prime minister”.
نئ لیکس سے صرف یہ کنفرم ہوتا ہے کہ امریکی مراسلہ وزیر اعظم سے چھپانے کی کوشش کی گئ
— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) September 28, 2022
Senior PTI leader Sayed Zulfi Bukhari also turned to Twitter to voice out his opinion. He claimed that the leaked audios were aligned with the PTI’s narrative regarding the cypher, adding that the leak only ‘strengthens’ their stance.
IK’s audio is completely in agreement with our narrative,cipher was hidden from the PM.
Best possibility was to bring into bureaucratic records-everything mentioned in cipher & written by ambassador.Great job putting up this audio,further strengthens our stance.#PMOfficeLeaks
— Sayed Z Bukhari (@sayedzbukhari) September 28, 2022
