Cipher case: former secretary discloses startling details of high-level meeting

ISLAMABAD: In a shocking twist to the ongoing cipher case, former secretary of Foreign Affairs Sohail Mahmood has revealed previously undisclosed information about a high-level meeting held in response to the cipher telegram disclosed by the former prime minister, as well as concerns raised by the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu.

Sohail Mahmood, who has now shared these revelations with a Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) team probing the cipher case, stated that the meeting was not pre-scheduled and that he was unaware of the exact participants beforehand.

He said that on March 28, a day after the former prime minister unveiled a cipher copy during a public gathering, he was urgently summoned to Bani Gala.

At the meeting in Bani Gala, he found himself in the company of the former prime minister, the former foreign minister (Shah Mehmood Qureshi), and a former secretary to the prime minister. During the meeting, Mahmood was handed the cipher telegram by Shah Mehmood Qureshi, which he was asked to read aloud. “This cipher telegram was the same one that had been delivered to Qureshi earlier on the same day on my directions”, read Sohail Mahmood’s statement obtained exclusively by Hum Investigation Team.

Remarkably, comments made during the meeting were in a language similar to that used by the US Assistant Secretary during his conversation with the Pakistani Ambassador. The meeting was brief and no conclusions or decisions were reached. After the meeting, Sohail Mahmood took the same cipher telegram to his office and was not asked to prepare any minutes.

The purpose of this meeting remained unclear at the time. It was only on April 8, 2022, during a Cabinet meeting, that the question of declassifying the cipher telegram was discussed. During his briefing at the Cabinet meeting, Sohail Mahmood strongly emphasised that declassification was neither possible nor advisable due to security guidelines, legal considerations, and foreign policy implications. He cited security guidelines that restricted sharing such communication only with authorised individuals and emphasised that declassification could jeopardise the security of the entire cipher communication system.

Furthermore, he highlighted the potential negative impact on bilateral relations with the US and other countries, as well as the trust associated with confidential exchanges with foreign interlocutors. The Secretary of Law Division and the Secretary of Cabinet Division cited provisions of the Official Secrets Act, 1923, which prohibited the proposed declassification. The Cabinet decided to hold an in-camera briefing to Parliament on the authenticity and salient points of the cipher message, to be presented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

As for the return of the cipher telegram copy to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), it had not been received by the Foreign Office by the time of Sohail Mahmood’s retirement on September 29, 2022. The former secretary to the prime minister had casually mentioned to Sohail that the prime minister could not locate his copy of the cipher and inquired about the possibility of an additional copy, but the matter was not pursued by the PMO, the statement read.

In a related development, Sohail Mehmood disclosed concerns raised by the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, who had a meeting with the Pakistani Ambassador in Washington on March 7, 2022. The Ambassador was accompanied by the Deputy Chief of Mission, Counselor and the Defence Attaché, while the Assistant Secretary of the State was accompanied by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the USA.

The Ambassador had underscored the sensitivity of the matter and communicated it via a cipher telegram. Sohail Mahmood confirmed the transmission of the telegram from the Pakistani Embassy in Washington to the Ministry, and it was then discreetly delivered to the former prime minister.

These revelations have sent shockwaves through the ongoing Cipher Case investigation, raising more questions about the content and implications of the cipher telegram, as well as the complex web of secrecy surrounding it.