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Lawyers for Pakistan’s Convicted Imran Khan to Meet Him in Jail 

Lawyers, who support Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan, hold a protest against Khan's imprisonment, in Lahore, Pakistan, Monday, Aug. 7, 2023. (AP)
Lawyers, who support Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan, hold a protest against Khan's imprisonment, in Lahore, Pakistan, Monday, Aug. 7, 2023. (AP)
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Lawyers for Pakistan’s Convicted Imran Khan to Meet Him in Jail 

Lawyers, who support Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan, hold a protest against Khan's imprisonment, in Lahore, Pakistan, Monday, Aug. 7, 2023. (AP)
Lawyers, who support Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan, hold a protest against Khan's imprisonment, in Lahore, Pakistan, Monday, Aug. 7, 2023. (AP)

Lawyers for Pakistan's jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan will be allowed to meet him on Monday before they file an appeal against a graft conviction that has landed the former cricket star in jail, one of his lawyers said.

Khan, 70, has been at the heart of political turmoil since he was ousted as prime minister in a vote of no confidence last year, raising concern about stability in the nuclear-armed country as it grapples with an economic crisis.

Police took Khan from his home in the city of Lahore on Saturday and transferred him to a jail in Attock district, near the capital Islamabad, where a court convicted him of graft charges arising from the sale of state gifts.

The conviction, which Khan rejects as politically motivated, likely means he will be disqualified from running in a general election due by November.

"The jail authorities have given us a time to meet Imran Khan at 12:30 p.m. (0730 GMT). We've reached Attock jail," one of his lawyers, Naeem Panjhuta, said, adding that an appeal against the graft conviction would be filed after Khan completed paperwork.

Khan's legal team is also appealing to authorities to secure him better conditions in jail, Panjhuta told reporters in Islamabad earlier.

He said Khan had been classified as "C-class" prisoner although by rights he should be allocated an "A-class" cell.

Political prisoners are entitled to better facilities, including television, newspapers and books.

"As per our information, Khan has been kept in C-class," Panjhuta said.

A government spokesperson did not immediately respond to request for a comment.

Khan's arrest was the latest in a series of blows that have weakened his political standing after he fell out with the powerful military and his party splintered.

Ever since his ouster, Khan has been campaigning for a snap election and organizing protests, which led to significant violence on May 9, raising tension with the military.

Khan accuses the military and his political opponents of plotting against him to block him from the election. The military, which has ruled Pakistan for about half its history, denies that.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is expected to call this week for the dissolution of parliament paving the way for a general election by November.

The political crisis has played out alongside an economic one.

Last month, the International Monetary Fund's board approved a $3 billion bailout for Pakistan to help it tackle an acute balance of payments crisis and dire shortage of central bank reserves.

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CIA Believes COVID Most Likely Originated from a Lab but Has Low Confidence in its Own Finding

(FILES) The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) seal is displayed in the lobby of CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, on August 14, 2008. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)
(FILES) The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) seal is displayed in the lobby of CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, on August 14, 2008. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)
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CIA Believes COVID Most Likely Originated from a Lab but Has Low Confidence in its Own Finding

(FILES) The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) seal is displayed in the lobby of CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, on August 14, 2008. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)
(FILES) The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) seal is displayed in the lobby of CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, on August 14, 2008. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)

The CIA now believes the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic most likely originated from a laboratory, according to an assessment released Saturday that points the finger at China even while acknowledging that the spy agency has “low confidence” in its own conclusion.
The finding is not the result of any new intelligence, and the report was completed at the behest of the Biden administration and former CIA Director William Burns. It was declassified and released Saturday on the orders of President Donald Trump's pick to lead the agency, John Ratcliffe, who was sworn in Thursday as director, The Associated Press reported.
The nuanced finding suggests the agency believes the totality of evidence makes a lab origin more likely than a natural origin. But the agency's assessment assigns a low degree of confidence to this conclusion, suggesting the evidence is deficient, inconclusive or contradictory.
Earlier reports on the origins of COVID-19 have split over whether the coronavirus emerged from a Chinese lab, potentially by mistake, or whether it arose naturally. The new assessment is not likely to settle the debate. In fact, intelligence officials say it may never be resolved, due to a lack of cooperation from Chinese authorities.
The CIA "continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible,” the agency wrote in a statement about its new assessment.
Instead of new evidence, the conclusion was based on fresh analyses of intelligence about the spread of the virus, its scientific properties and the work and conditions of China's virology labs.
Lawmakers have pressured America's spy agencies for more information about the origins of the virus, which led to lockdowns, economic upheaval and millions of deaths. It's a question with significant domestic and geopolitical implications as the world continues to grapple with the pandemic's legacy.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Saturday he was “pleased the CIA concluded in the final days of the Biden administration that the lab-leak theory is the most plausible explanation" and he commended Ratcliffe for declassifying the assessment.
“Now, the most important thing is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world,” Cotton said in a statement.
Chinese authorities have dismissed speculation about COVID's origins as unhelpful and motivated by politics. On Saturday, a spokesperson for China's US embassy said the CIA report has no credibility.
“We firmly oppose the politicization and stigmatization of the source of the virus, and once again call on everyone to respect science and stay away from conspiracy theories,” embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press.
While the origin of the virus remains unknown, scientists think the most likely hypothesis is that it circulated in bats, like many coronaviruses, before infecting another species, probably racoon dogs, civet cats or bamboo rats. In turn, the infection spread to humans handling or butchering those animals at a market in Wuhan, where the first human cases appeared in late November 2019.
Some official investigations, however, have raised the the question of whether the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan. Two years ago a report by the Energy Department concluded a lab leak was the most likely origin, though that report also expressed low confidence in the finding.
The same year then-FBI Director Christopher Wray said his agency believed the virus “most likely” spread after escaping from a lab.
Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence during Trump's first term, has said he favors the lab leak scenario, too.
“The lab leak is the only theory supported by science, intelligence, and common sense,” Ratcliffe said in 2023.