ISLAMABAD ( WEB NEWS )
Former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party announced plans to challenge the verdict of a local court in Islamabad on Thursday after it rejected the appeal of its founding leader and his wife Bushra Bibi for the suspension of a ruling that they had violated the country’s marriage laws.
Khan and his wife were sentenced to seven years in prison and fined on February 3, just days before the national polls, after Bushra was accused of not completing the waiting period mandated by Islam, called “Iddat,” after divorcing her previous husband and marrying Khan.
A favorable decision would have led to the couple’s release from prison after they managed to secure bail in all other cases against them.
Khan became tangled in a slew of legal cases, a frequent hazard for opposition figures in Pakistan, since his ouster from power in a no-confidence vote in April 2022.
Khan has been in jail since August 5 last year on different charges including corruption.
“This case was between a husband and wife, it was politicized, it was weaponized, and the punishment was not suspended today,” Omar Ayub, a top PTI leader, said while addressing a news conference outside the court after the verdict.
“We will, God willing, immediately challenge the decision in the high court through our lawyers.”
Dozens of Khan supporters gathered outside the district court before the judgment was announced, carrying placards and portraits of the cricketer-turned-politician that demanded his release from prison.
In a ten-page judgment, additional sessions judge Muhammad Afzal Majoka rejected the petitions.
“That no ground for suspension of sentence is available to both the petitioners,” the judgment read. “Accordingly, both petitions under section 426CrPC are dismissed.”
Shortly before the verdict was announced, Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Omar Ayub and PTI women wing president, Kanwal Shauzab, reached the courtroom with other Khan supporters to hear the judgment.
Earlier in the day, Khan’s legal team expressed confidence that its clients would be released from prison.
“As per law and facts of the case, we are sure the judge will suspend sentence of both Imran Khan and his wife in this frivolous case,” advocate Khalid Yousaf Chaudry, a PTI core committee member, told Arab News.
“We hope the judge will give the verdict on merit and order to release the couple in the case,” he added.
The conviction of Khan and his wife in the marriage case was widely criticized by civil society activists and lawyers for being a “blow to women’s right to dignity and privacy.”
These activists protested in Islamabad and Karachi against the judgment, calling the state to withdraw the case for being intrusive in the family life.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s adviser on political and public affairs, Rana Sanaullah, said earlier this week that Khan believed in spreading “chaos and anarchy” in the country, adding the government could frame new charges to keep him behind bars for “as long as possible.”