A Pakistan court acquitted former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife on Saturday on charges of unlawful marriage, a day after his party won more seats in parliament, ramping up pressure on the country’s fragile government.

“Imran Khan and Bibi sahiba are acquitted,” Khan lawyer Naeem Panjutha posted on X, using an honorific for Khan’s wife, Bushra Khan, also known as Bushra Bibi.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said there were no more cases pending against Khan, 71, to keep him in jail after the acquittal by the court in the capital Islamabad.

The couple were sentenced to seven years in February when a court found them guilty of breaking Islamic law by failing to observe the required interval between Bibi’s divorce from a previous marriage and her marriage to Khan.

It was not immediately clear whether Khan and Bibi, both in jail, would be released following Saturday’s decision.

All four jail sentences Khan received ahead of a February national election have now been overturned or suspended. The embattled leader, in jail since August, was acquitted this month of charges of leaking state secrets. The other two sentences have been suspended.

But a court cancelled his bail last week related to violence in May 2023, where his supporters attacked military installations to protest against his arrest.

It was not immediately clear whether Khan had been remanded in that case to keep him in jail.

Khan is named as an accused party in several other cases, including the one violence against the state. Bibi is an accused party on at least one other charge of the couple accepting land as a bribe from a real estate developer when Khan was in office.

The PTI warned that keeping him in jail despite Saturday’s decision to grant bail on Saturday would lead to another political crisis.

Source: Reuters

--Agencies