ISLAMABAD: An Islamabad district and sessions court did not announce its already reserved verdict in the iddat case against former premier Imran Khan and his spouse Bushra Bibi while the complainant was assaulted outside the court.
The court had reserved the verdict last week on appeals filed by the PTI founder and his wife against their conviction in the iddat case — which was the third and last in a series of verdicts announced just a few days before the general elections.
While the verdict was expected to be pronounced today, District and Sessions Judge Shahrukh Arjumand sought transfer of the case and would not be announcing the judgment.
Earlier this month, complainant Khawar Fareed Maneka, Bushra Bibi’s former husband, had requested Arjumand to recuse himself from hearing the appeals, accusing him of being biased and sympathetic towards the PTI.
A video broadcast on television showed Maneka, dressed in a white shalwar kameez, walking outside court as men, who appeared to be lawyers, shoved him. He can be seen falling as people pull the attackers off of him.
Judge Arjumand had taken up the appeals on February 29. During the previous hearing, defence counsel Usman Gill and the prosecutor had concluded their arguments in the case.
As Raja Rizwan Abbasi, lead counsel for Maneka, had failed to appear, the court had ordered his associate to contact and tell him he may conclude his arguments in person or via video link. However, when Abbasi failed to appear, the court reserved its decision.
On February 3 — days before the general elections — an Islamabad court had sentenced Imran and Bushra Bibi to seven years in jail in the case, which pertains to their marriage during the latter’s iddat period.
The verdict had come in the same week Imran and Bushra Bibi had been handed 14-year sentences in the Toshakhana case, and Imran and his foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had received a 10-year sentence in the cipher case.
The judgment was widely criticised by civil society, women activists and lawyers for being a “blow to women’s right to dignity and privacy”. Activists had protested in Islamabad against the verdict while a Karachi demonstration against the “state’s intrusion into people’s private lives” had also denounced it.
