LAHORE  -  Amid reports that former prime min­ister Imran Khan hired a UK-based lawyer to represent him in inter­national courts, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President and former interior minister Rana Sanaullah said Sunday that a “puppet is being used to defame Pakistan glob­ally”. In a statement on Sunday Rana Sanaullah said, “Going to the Interna­tional Court of Justice means making Pakistan stand in the global dock as a criminal,” the senior PML-N leader said, adding that only enemies of Pa­kistan could do this despicable act.

On September 1, Pakistan Teh­reek-e-Insaaf (PTI) announced on its official X — formerly known as Twitter — account: “PTI chairman and former PM Imran Khan has ap­pointed the eminent human rights Barrister Geoffrey Robertson KC of Doughty Street Chambers to advise and represent him in international courts in relation to unlawful deten­tion and human rights abuses.”

A PTI source in Islamabad said that the decision to hire Robertson was taken by Khan on the advice of Omar Ayub Khan, Zulfi Bukhari and his lawyers in Pakistan after consulting “some important people in the UK”.

Subsequently, on September 2, PTI revoked the services of Geoffrey Robertson KC after backlash and se­vere criticism in the media. Doughty Street Chambers said it has been told by PTI that Robertson’s services will not be required due to criticism in Pa­kistan. Sanaullah took a jibe at Khan saying the “blue-eyed” of the judicial system did not need to go abroad. “Who is spending money on Im­ran Niazi?” the former interior min­ister asked. “Those he works for are trying to save him. First, they made him a hero, gave him foreign fund­ing and brought him to power after which Pakistan’s economy and for­eign relations were destroyed.” He further said that the path to civil war was paved through inflation where­as the minds of the youth were filled with “gunpowder so that could attack when and where they wanted”. Fur­thermore, Sanaullah said that occu­pants of Palestine and Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIO­JK) were jubilant when they found out that Pakistan would be taken to international court. As soon as PTI announced it had hired Robertson there was a lot of criticism in the me­dia that the lawyer has been involved in campaigns against the Pakistani military, propagating false theories about the 1971 war and the breakup of Bangladesh from Pakistan.