Imran Khan, Pakistan’s former Prime Minister and World Cup-winning captain, has been in jail since 2023 and was sentenced late last year, along with his wife, to 17 years on corruption charges they both deny. Khan was prime minister from 2018 to 2022 before being removed in a no-confidence vote during a political crisis over tensions between his government and Pakistan’s powerful military establishment. He has since faced multiple legal cases on corruption and other charges.
The 73-year-old’s family and lawyer say he has lost most of the vision in his right eye. According to a report in The Times by former England captain Mike Atherton, Imran’s sons from his marriage to Jemima Goldsmith – Sulaiman Isa Khan (born 1996) and Kasim Khan (born 1999) – spoke to their father for the first time last weekend since January. The call reportedly lasted 28 minutes, and Imran’s sons say their father’s resolve remains solid.
“We asked how he is physically, but he’s quite dismissive of that stuff. He said, ‘I’m doing OK,’ and he said his eyesight is getting a little better, so I took that as a positive. He was especially concerned this time about his wife; apparently her conditions are just as bad as his. He said they know they are never going to break him and he feels that he can handle anything, but when family and other people are involved, it gets tougher,” Kasim said.
“What they [the authorities] fear, I think, is public attention; they just want to keep everything quiet – keep them silently hemmed in and slowly whittle away any kind of strength from the movement. You can see that in their petty tactics when people challenge the conditions Imran is in. They try to silently remove small liberties, like not allowing new books or turning off the power in the cell.”
Staying in prison has made Imran mentally stronger, and he practices a lot of meditation. “He’s come so far mentally and spiritually that I think, in his mind, he sees this as a trial he has to go through. I don’t think he’s affected the way he would have been even, say, ten years ago. He’s in a place where he thinks that if it has happened this way, then that is how it has to happen – despite how harsh and brutal the conditions are and how detrimental they are to his physical well-being,” Kasim added.
“There would be these blackouts. He’d say the first two days were brutal, but after that he just got into this kind of meditative state and learned how to meditate and go inside himself. Funnily enough, these torture tactics have taught him how to stay in there for longer.”
Imran’s sons have not seen their father since 2022. They are still waiting for visas to go to Pakistan. “He’s already had a few close shaves, like when he was shot a few years ago. I wouldn’t say you ever get used to it, but you build a bit of a thick skin for that kind of thing. I wouldn’t say we’ve been preparing for it, but I know this is his passion and he has said publicly that he’d rather die in prison than walk away from his principles,” Sulaiman told Atherton.
“I used to hate him being in politics when I was younger. I’d wish he’d do cricket analysis or something. I remember when he had a stand-off with a politician in Karachi – a mafia sort of character. I would beg him to get out of politics, but he’d laugh it off, and I basically came to realise that he wouldn’t be happy if he wasn’t doing politics or something that he felt was really impactful and risky. So I’ve gotten used to it as I’ve grown older,” he added.