ISLAMABAD (Reuters) -Bushra Bibi, the wife of former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, was released from prison on Thursday, a day after she was granted bail in a case linked to the illegal sale of state gifts, ending about nine months of imprisonment.
The release is the biggest legal relief for Khan and his family since he was imprisoned in August last year. Bibi, who was arrested in January, was released from Adiala Jail in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, where Khan still remains.
Local television channels showed a small number of supporters throwing rose petals on two white SUVs escorting her from the jail.
Bibi faces at least one other graft case linked to receiving land from a real estate developer.
“Welcome back Bushra Bibi! You have faced extremely difficult times, disgusting campaign and character assassination attempts against your during your illegal time in jail,” Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, said in a post on X.
Khan himself faces dozens of other cases, including charges of violating anti-terrorism laws, brought since he was removed as premier in 2022 and launched a protest movement against a coalition of his rivals led by current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
The Khans deny all the charges, saying they are trumped up by the government to discredit the 72-year-old former cricket star, who remains widely popular and whose candidates won the most seats in February’s general election.
The Sharif-led government says it does not interfere in the judicial process. Khan’s standoff with the country’s powerful military, who he says backs Sharif, has spawned the worst political turmoil in decades in the nation of 241 million people.
Bibi, whose actual name is Bushra Khan, is Khan’s third wife. The two married six months before he became prime minister for the first time in 2018.
Khan has often called her his spiritual leader and she is known for her devotion to Sufism, a mystical form of Islam. She has mostly remained away from the public eye, appearing in only one television interview – that too wearing her traditional veil.
(Reporting by Gibran Peshimam; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
