Notably, the verdict comes a day after Khan was given a prison sentence of 10 years in a case related to leaking state secrets.

“Another sad day in our judicial system history, which is being dismantled,” a spokesperson for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party told media.

It was not immediately clear if Khan’s sentences were to run consecutively or concurrently following a trial held inside the jail where he has been detained for much of the time since his arrest in August. But Khan’s lawyer Salman Safdar confirmed to AFP he had been sentenced alongside his wife, Bushra Bibi, who had been on remand throughout the trial.

“Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi have been sentenced. Bushra Bibi has not been arrested as yet,” Safdar said.

The pair married in 2018, months before Khan was elected prime minister. Bibi, a faith healer who met Khan when he approached her for spiritual guidance, is rarely seen in public.

Khan was jailed in August this year, in the cipher case, which involved an alleged violation of the Official Secret Act. It was alleged that the cricketer-turned-politician disclosed a secret diplomatic cable sent by Pakistan’s Washington Embassy in March.

The 71-year-old former cricket star has been embroiled in a string of political and legal battles ever since he was ousted as prime minister in April 2022.

The Supreme Court judges, in a written court order, said they could not find “sufficient incriminating material” which could establish that Khan leaked state secrets to benefit a foreign power.

The order said Khan’s release on bail “during the period of elections would ensure ‘genuine elections’ and thus enable the people to exercise the right to express their will effectively and meaningfully. There are no exceptional circumstances to decline the concession of bail.”

However, Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said he remains incarcerated over numerous separate graft cases, with a scant chance that he will be released from prison to contest elections.