Jailed former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan and ex-foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi were on Tuesday sentenced to 10 years each in prison for leaking State secrets.

The verdict was pronounced ahead of the February 8 general elections.

The decision to sentence the two leaders was announced by special court Judge Abul Hasnat Zulqarnain during the hearing of the case held at the special court in Adiala Jail at Rawalpindi established under the Official Secrets Act.

Khan's party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party has faced numerous troubles starting with the denial of its election symbol, the cricket bat, to the rejection of nomination papers of Khan, Qureshi and a number of other party leaders.

The cipher case pertains to a piece of paper, purported to be a diplomatic cable -- the cipher -- that Khan had waved at a public rally on March 27, 2022, and naming the US, had claimed that it was "evidence" of an "international conspiracy" to topple his government.

The case was filed against Khan, 71, and Qureshi, 67, on August 15 last year by the Federal Investigation Agency, which accused both of violating the secrecy laws while handling the cable sent by the Pakistan embassy in Washington in March 2022.

The PTI leaders confirmed the development by saying that it was a "sham case with no access to media or public".

"Legal team will challenge the decision in a higher court and hopefully will get this sentence suspended, given the poor proceedings of a case when Islamabad High Court had annulled proceedings twice, ordered access to media and public but on the contrary, access of legal team was denied, and a decision reached in a haste," the party said in WhatsApp message.

The PTI leaders were first indicted in October 2023 but the process was reversed by the Islamabad high court while ruling against in-camera proceedings. They were indicted again in December.