Court orders release of ‘same-sex’ couple

PAKISTAN’S Supreme Court yesterday ordered a couple to be released from prison after a lower court ruled the husband was a woman and said their same-sex marriage was against Islam.

A high court in the city of Lahore sent the couple to jail for three years last month for lying to the court by saying the husband, Shumail Raj, was a man.

The case has attracted widespread attention in Pakistan where the media has labelled the two the first openly acknowledged same-sex couple in the conservative Muslim country, where issues relating to homosexuality and transexuality are taboo.