ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Tuesday summoned Khawaja Haris, the lead counsel of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan, in connection with an inquiry related to fake Facebook posts of the trial court judge who convicted the PTI chief in the Toshakhana case.

The FIA also interrogated Naeem Haider Panjhuta, the special attorney of Mr Khan, in connection with this inquiry on Tuesday for eight hours.

According to the notice issued by the FIA, Khawaja Haris was directed to appear on August 9 at 2pm in its Cyber Crimes Wing in Sector G-13 of Islamabad in connection with an inquiry.

The notice stated that the inquiry has been initiated on the direction of the Islamabad High Court (IHC).

The legal team of Mr Khan was seeking the transfer of the Tosha­kha­­na case from the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Humayun Dilawar on the basis of some alleged anti-Imran Khan posts on the judge’s Facebook account which latter turned out to be fake.

Khawaja Haris asked to join inquiry started on IHC order

The IHC chief justice took notice of the matter and remanded the matter to Federal Investigation Agency and sought a report.

In its report, the FIA declared the controversial posts as fabricated.

During the hearing of the case on August 4, the counsel of the Election Commission of Pakistan had criticised the conduct of Mr Khan and argued that the same was done to malign the court and bring judiciary to disrepute.

In rebuttal, Mr Haris argued that the Federal Investigation Agency report on the issue of fake posts on Facebook was unilateral.

The court noted that “the FIA could not verify the authenticity of screenshots due to non-availability of URL/link and…no post in question/screenshots was found”.

During the hearing of the case, Justice Farooq observed: “The matter needs to be probed further and inquiry is to be made by involving all those persons who without verifying the authenticity of the posts used the same to malign a senior Judicial Officer of Islamabad judiciary, especially when there is a categorical denial on his part that the referred posts are not from his account”.

Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2023