An Islamabad court rejected on Thursday a plea to suspend the jail terms of former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan and his wife, whose marriage was ruled illegal under Islamic law.
Khan has been entangled in more than 200 legal cases since he was ousted in April 2022 in what he said was a campaign to keep him from power.
The 71-year-old and his wife Bushra Bibi were both sentenced to seven years in jail in February on charges that, under Islamic law, their marriage came too soon after Bibi’s divorce.
According to AFP journalists in the Islamabad district court, a judge deferred the plea to suspend their sentences and said that a decision would be announced on July 12.
Khan, who served as prime minister from 2018 to 2022, has been detained since August last year and barred from standing for office.
However, the former international cricket star and his wife had their 14-year prison sentences for graft suspended by a Pakistan high court in April.
Khan then had a 10-year sentence for treason overturned this month but remains in Adiala jail, south of the capital Islamabad, over the illegal marriage conviction.
He had been cleared for release before that trio of sentences in the days running up to Pakistan’s February 8 general elections.
Rana Sanaullah, an adviser to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, said this week “the government will try to keep him locked up for as long as possible”.
Analysts say Pakistan’s powerful military, which ruled directly for decades and still wields immense power, is likely behind the slew of cases.
Khan was ousted by a parliamentary no-confidence vote after falling out with the top generals who had once backed him.
He then waged an unprecedented campaign of defiance in opposition against them and accused top officers of conspiring in an assassination attempt in which he was shot during a political rally in November 2022.
Khan’s brief arrest in May 2023 sparked nationwide unrest, which in turn prompted a sweeping crackdown against his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and its senior leaders.
PTI candidates were forced to stand as independents in the February elections, although candidates loyal to PTI still secured more seats than any other party.
However, they were kept from power by a broad coalition of parties considered loyal to the military.
