Pakistan ex-PM Imran Khan’s illegal marriage conviction overturned

A Pakistan court overturned former prime minister Imran Khan’s conviction on illegal marriage charges on Saturday, though he remains jailed over allegations of inciting riots.

Khan was slapped with a trio of convictions in the days before February elections – cases he says were orchestrated to prevent his return to power.

Those cases have now all been at least partially rolled back on appeal, with a treason conviction carrying a decade jail term overturned in April, and a 14-year graft sentence suspended in June, though the conviction still stands.

Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi had also been sentenced to seven years for allegedly marrying too soon after her divorce, in a breach of Islamic law.

But Islamabad Additional District and Sessions Court judge Afzal Majoka announced in court that the “appeals of both Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi are accepted”.

A spokesman for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said the charges had been “dismissed”.

Khan remains locked up, though, after a court this week cancelled his bail over accusations he incited riots by his supporters in May 2023.

Earlier this month, a UN panel of experts found Khan’s detention “had no legal basis and appears to have been intended to disqualify him from running for political office”.

“Thus, from the outset, that prosecution was not grounded in law and was reportedly instrumentalised for a political purpose,” it said, calling for his immediate release after nearly a year in jail.

Candidates loyal to Khan won the most seats in the national election, but were kept from government by an alliance of military-backed rival parties.

Khan served as prime minister from 2018 to 2022, when he was ousted by a no-confidence vote after falling out with the military