A Pakistani court has sentenced ex-prime minister, Imran Khan, and his wife to seven years in prison after declaring their marriage void.
The court stated that Khan’s marital union with Bushra Bibi, a faith healer, in 2018 was not in accordance with Islamic law.
Khan is currently serving a prison sentence for corruption and was convicted a week before a general election for profiting from state gifts. The former cricket captain, turned-politician, has consistently proclaimed that the cases brought against him are politically motivated.
The court held the trial for the voided marriage within the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi where Khan is already serving time. The case was filed by Bibi’s ex-husband, who alleged that her marriage with Khan was fraudulent.
According to Muslim family law, women are prohibited from remarrying for a few months after they are divorced or their husband dies. The court found that Bibi had remarried before the stipulated time following her divorce, resulting in the voiding of the marriage with Khan.
In addition to the seven-year jail term, the court imposed a fine of 500,000 rupees ($1,800; £1,420) on Khan and Bibi. The couple married in 2018, just months before Khan was elected prime minister. Bibi, believed to be in her 40s, is Khan’s third wife and is known to always wear a veil in public.
Before his marriage with Bibi, Khan had a high-profile marriage with British socialite Jemima Goldsmith in 1995, which lasted nine years and produced two sons. His second marriage in 2015 to journalist and former BBC weather presenter Reham Khan lasted less than a year.
Imran Khan has been detained since his arrest in August, and the recent prison sentence is the third he has received in less than a week. On Tuesday, he was jailed for 10 years for leaking classified documents, and on Wednesday, a court case centered around accusations of selling or keeping state gifts received in office, resulting in a 14-year sentence for both Khan and Bibi, with Bibi being allowed to serve her sentence under house arrest.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has expressed that he was tried in “kangaroo courts”. There have been widespread concerns about the credibility of next week’s election as Khan and his party have faced significant challenges and opposition.
Many PTI leaders have been imprisoned, and thousands of the party’s supporters have been arrested after protests. The man favored to win the upcoming election is Nawaz Sharif, a three-time former PM who was jailed for corruption ahead of the 2018 election that Khan won.
Many analysts believe that Sharif is now favored by Pakistan’s powerful military establishment. Despite these challenges, Khan has continually asserted that the numerous legal cases he faces are politically motivated.
