Imran Khan, Wife Acquitted in Marriage Case

A Pakistani court acquitted former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, in the un-Islamic marriage case. This case was the only one keeping the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party founder behind bars since August last year.

On February 3, just days before the general elections on February 8, an Islamabad court had convicted the couple based on a complaint filed by Bushra Bibi's ex-husband, Khawar Fareed Maneka.

Maneka alleged that they had contracted marriage during Bushra Bibi's Iddat period, a mandatory waiting period in Islam that lasts four months after a woman's divorce or the death of her husband.

The couple challenged the sentence in a district and session court in Islamabad, where Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Afzal Majoka heard the case. Judge Majoka announced the judgment in the afternoon after reserving the verdict earlier in the day, acquitting Khan, 71, and Bushra, 49.

"If they are not wanted in any other case, then PTI founder Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi should be released [from jail] immediately," the judge said after accepting their appeals.

Imran Khan, the cricketer-turned-politician, has been behind bars since August last year after being sentenced in the Toshakhana corruption case and subsequently convicted in other cases ahead of the February 8 elections.

Maneka filed the case against the couple in November 2023, alleging that they married without observing the mandatory Iddat period. He sought to have the marriage declared null and void.

Khan and Bibi married in 2018, the same year Khan won the general elections and became prime minister. Bibi, who was ostensibly Khan's spiritual guide, divorced her husband of 28 years, with whom she had five children, and developed a romantic relationship with Khan. She is Khan's third wife.