Judge recuses himself from Imran Khan’s marriage appeal case amid chaos in court compound

ISLAMABAD: An Islamabad district and sessions court judge hearing appeals challenging the seven-year jail sentence each for former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi decided to recuse himself on Wednesday after reserving the judgment in the matter last week until today, May 29.
Khan and his wife were sentenced and fined in February by a court that ruled their 2018 marriage broke the law. Bushra was accused of not completing the waiting period mandated by Islam, called “Iddat,” after divorcing her previous husband and marrying Khan.
The Khans signed their marriage contract, or “Nikkah,” in January 2018 in a secret ceremony seven months before the former cricket superstar became prime minister for the first time. There was controversy over whether they had wed before the Iddat period was complete. After initial denials of the marriage, Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf confirmed it weeks later.
The Khans both deny wrongdoing.
The judge announced his recusal shortly after lawyers supporting ex-PM Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party assaulted Khawar Manika, Bibi’s former husband and complainant in the case.
“The above referred two appeals are pending adjudication before undersigned and complainant / respondent No. 02 Khawar Farid Manika has shown his mistrust on me today in open court,” Judge Shahrukh Arjumand wrote in a note to the Islamabad High Court after listing the titles of the appeals in the subject line.
“It is humbly submitted to transfer the two (02) appeals … to any other court of competent jurisdiction,” he added.
The judge, however, noted the complainant and his counsel had “always tried to frustrate and delay the proceedings on one pretext or other, therefore, time frame may be fixed for disposal of appeals.”
Television footage showed Manika being manhandled in the court compound.
The PTI leaders attributed the incident to Manika’s provocative language during the hearing while addressing a news conference after the incident.
“He spoke very inappropriately inside the court,” Barrister Gohar Khan, also a top PTI leader, said. “He used words that we cannot even mention in front of the camera.”
He noted that his party had high hopes from the court, adding it should have announced the verdict in “the bogus case” against Khan and his wife and suspended the sentence against them in today’s hearing.
Bibi is currently serving out two prison sentences at Adiala Jail where Khan is also incarcerated. In January, both were sentenced to 14 years in prison in a case that relates to accusations they undervalued gifts from a state repository and gained profits from selling them while Khan was prime minister from 2018-22.