ISLAMABAD  -  A lower court on Saturday handed seven years imprisonment sentence to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi in a case pertaining to their marriage during the period of latter’s ‘iddat’. The court also imposed a fine worth Rs500,000 on each accused.

Senior Civil Judge Qudratullah pronounced the short verdict which was reserved on Friday. PTI’s founder and Bushra Bibi were also present in courtroom at Adiala Jail when the decision was announced.

The civil court has reserved its verdict on Friday after hearing arguments also stated that it has been proven that the accused were meeting before the marriage after Khawar Mane­ka’s affidavit was sub­mitted in the court about the couple’s meeting in 2014. It has been also proven that the accused met alone several times while Bushra Bibi was married to Khawar Maneka. According to the verdict, the couple has accepted that they met before marriage but didn’t have an ille­gitimate relationship. The detailed judge­ment also asked the question of whether a man and woman who are not “mehram” can meet without mar­riage or not. Accord­ing to the golden rules of Islam, they can’t meet before marriage, and if they meet be­fore marriage and it ends up in a marriage that would be consid­ered fraudulent. The Nikah was done on January 1st, 2018 and the divorce was giv­en on November 14th, 2017 so the Iddat pe­riod of 90 days was not completed and the marriage has been de­clared fraudulent un­der section 496 PPC. The Nikah ceremo­ny done in mid-Feb­ruary was also de­clared fraudulent and it was done to show that the Iddat period of 90 days was over. The fraudulent mar­riage case was filed by Khawar Maneka on November 25th, 2023. After the wit­ness testimonies were recorded their trial was moved to Adiala Jail since Imran Khan was already incarcer­ated and couldn’t be produced at the court because of securi­ty reasons. Charges were framed on Jan­uary 16th, 2024 by the court. A stay was granted by Islamabad Hugh court on Janu­ary 18th which lat­er vacated on January 31st. Two marathon hearings of 26 hours on Thursday and Fri­day took place at Adi­ala jail and judgment was reserved for 1:00 pm Saturday. Judg­ment was announced around 3:30 pm and 50 pages detailed ver­dict was also issued by the county. Imran Khan after hearing has declared that the judgement has been given to defame and shame him. Bushra Bibi said that Allah has given his decision about Iddat in the Qu­ran and today’s ver­dict is the Iblees ver­dict “This is a war of honour and dishnour,” she remarked in an in­formal discussion with journalists after the trial court sentenced her and Imran Khan to seven years in jail after declaring their marriage illegal and un-Islamic. She said Allah Almighty has explained all things about “Iddat” in holy Quran. She called the Friday’s ruling a “deci­sion by Iblees (devil)”.