Pakistan's former prime minister, Imran Khan, will spend ten years in prison after being found guilty of leaking state secrets.

"Former prime minister Imran Khan and former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi have been sentenced 10 years each in a sham case with no access to media or public in Cypher Case," the Pakistani News Agency (PTI) reported.

PHOTO | COURTESY Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan

It stated that its legal team "will challenge the decision in a higher court" in the hopes of having the punishment suspended.

The former prime minister was arrested and detained in 2023 on allegations of corruption. The detention came a day after the country's powerful military scolded Khan for repeatedly accusing a top military commander of planning his assassination and the previous chief of the armed forces of orchestrating his downfall last year.

In response, his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party called for a "shutdown" across the country, with witnesses and recordings showing Khan's followers clashing with police in various cities and storming military headquarters in Lahore and Rawalpindi.