Imran Khan, Bushra Bibi move lower court against 'un-Islamic marriage' case verdict

Islamabad: Jailed former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi on Friday separately moved a lower court challenging the verdict in the "un-Islamic" marriage case in which they were jailed for seven years and their marriage in 2018 declared illegal.

Earlier this month, a trial court sentenced Khan, 71, and his wife Bushra Bibi, 49, to seven years in jail and imposed a Rs 5,00,000 fine on each for “contracting marriage during the ‘iddat’ (period of waiting)” in a case filed by Bibi’s former husband Khawar Maneka in November last year.

The district and sessions court will mark the former first couple's appeals on Friday, Geo News reported.

Bushra Bibi filed her appeal at the court through her lawyers seeking annulment of the trial court's decision, the report said.

The third spouse of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party founder petitioned that the judgment delivered by civil judge Qudratullah on February 3 was against the facts, while the indictment issued against her in the case on January 16 was also illegal.

The petition said that the plea of jurisdiction was rejected without assigning any reason and that the civil court did not conduct the trial properly.

"Bushra Bibi reserves the right to request discharge from the case," it stated.

It further said that the complaint was filed six years after her marriage with the former-cricketer-turned-politician Khan, while another complainant filed a similar application earlier.

Asserting that the statements of Khawar Maneka and the witnesses kept changing, the petition stated that Mufti Saeed could not prove his claim of a second marriage between Bushra Bibi and Khan.

Mufti Saeed is the Pakistani cleric who solemnised the couple’s Islamic marriage in 2018. He had alleged that the ceremony was not conducted under Islamic Sharia law and that the wedding occurred during Bushra Bibi's iddat period.

Bushra Bibi is imprisoned at Khan's Bani Gala residence in Islamabad after an accountability court sentenced the couple to 14 years in jail in the Toshakhana corruption case last month.

Khan is lodged at the high-security Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi. Both of them have been convicted with multiple years’ sentences in the Toshakhana expensive gift case and the iddat case, which declared their marriage as un-Islamic.