Islamabad, June 27 (EFE).- A court in Pakistan is expected Thursday to issue a ruling on appeals filed by former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi seeking bail in a sentence awarded for violating a marriage law.
Khan has already been granted bails or sentences were suspended in other cases by higher courts.
If not arrested in any other cases, he might be released from the prison in Rawalpindi city where he has been imprisoned since August last year.
On Feb. 4, just four days before the polls, Khan and his spouse were sentenced to seven years in jail in a jail trial for contracting marriage during the “Iddat,” a period of waiting in Islam for a woman to remarry.
On Tuesday, a district and sessions court had reserved its verdict on the case to be announced on Thursday.
“Session Court Islamabad will give the verdict on bail petition in Iddat case today,” Ahmed Janjua, a spokesperson for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said in a statement.
The former prime minister has been acquitted or bailed out in 18 different cases, the spokesperson added.
Apart from the Iddat case, Khan’s two sentences have already been suspended or he has been granted bails.
On Jan. 30, he was jailed for 10 years in a case related to revealing state secrets during his tenure as prime minister, a case known as the cipher case.
On Jan. 31, both were sentenced to 14 years in jail for keeping and selling the gifts from a state treasury known locally known as the “Toshakhana”.
In May, Khan and his wife Bibi were granted bail in a graft case involving 190 million pounds ($239 million), a case that is currently under trial.
His party claims all the charges against him are politically motivated.
Rana Sanaullah, adviser to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on political and public affairs, acknowledged the government could frame new charges against him to keep him in jail for “as long as possible.”
“Imran Khan’s main agenda is to destabilize the country and spread chaos and anarchy in the country. That’s why the government will certainly try to keep him behind bars as long as possible,” Sanaullah said during an interview with Geo News TV on Tuesday.
Rival political parties including Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) claim Khan has caused political instability by his politics of agitation since his ouster in April 2022 and has also divided public opinion about the powerful military which has an outsized role in political affairs. EFE
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