Pakistan ex-PM Imran Khan’s wife, Bushra Bibi, released from prison

The couple was sentenced in January to 14 years in prison on what they claim are trumped-up corruption charges.

Bushra Bibi, the wife of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan, has been released from prison nearly nine months after the couple was sentenced in a case linked to the illegal sale of state gifts.

Bibi was released from Adiala jail in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Thursday after being granted bail the previous day by the Islamabad High Court, Naeem Haider Panjutha, a lawyer for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, confirmed to Al Jazeera.

Both Bibi and Khan were sentenced to 14 years in jail in January after being found guilty on multiple charges of retaining and selling state gifts in violation of government rules.

A court ruled that the couple had illegally sold gifts worth more than 140 million rupees ($505,000) received during Khan’s 2018-2022 premiership from a state treasury known as the Toshakhana, or treasure house.

The Khans deny the charges and say they were trumped up by the government to victimise the 72-year-old former cricket star, who has faced dozens of cases since he was removed as prime minister in 2022.

Khan has since been in a standoff with the country’s powerful military generals, whom he claims back the current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

The Sharif-led government says it does not interfere in the judicial process. The standoff has spawned the worst political turmoil in decades in the nation of 241 million people.

Khan remains widely popular in Pakistan, his party’s candidates winning the most seats in February’s general election.

The authorities have registered multiple cases against him since 2022, when he was removed in a no-confidence vote in parliament.

The former prime minister has been embroiled in more than 150 legal cases, including inciting violence, since his initial arrest in May 2023. He was imprisoned in August 2023 in a corruption case.

Bibi, Khan’s third wife, was first arrested in January. She and Khan were acquitted in July on charges that their marriage was unlawful, but she was quickly arrested again in the state gifts case.

PTI chairman Gohar Ali Khan said after her release, Bibi was travelling to her Islamabad residence.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies