Incarcerated PTI founder Imran Khan’s son Kasim Khan has highlighted that his father was jailed in “really poor conditions” that were “getting worse by the moment”.
Imran’s sons — Sulaiman Khan, 28, and Kasim, 26 — called attention to their father’s incarceration for the first time publicly in May. Earlier this month, Imran’s sister Aleema Khan said Sulaiman and Kasim will go to the United States before coming to Pakistan as part of a movement calling for the ex-premier’s release. The siblings visited the US and engaged US lawmakers on the issue of their father’s incarceration.
Imran, imprisoned since August 2023, is serving a sentence at the Adiala Jail in a £190 million corruption case and also faces pending trials under the Anti-Terrorism Act related to the protests of May 9, 2023.
In an interview on US media outlet Real America’s Voice shared today, Kasim said, “Right now he’s in really, really poor conditions and it looks like they’re getting worse and worse by the moment. So we’re looking for any way out possible.”
While emphasising that Imran was “incarcerated in a solitary confinement cell”, he said, “The state of the cell he’s in is awful, quite frankly.”
He continued, “He’s showering in muddy water. I don’t mean unfiltered water. It’s muddy, dirty water,” alleging that 10 people who were incarcerated had died from filthy conditions.
Kasim expressed worry over not being able to see his father and said, “There were moments … he went 10 days without any light in his cell,” calling it a “torture tactic”.
“He gets only two hours a day in daylight. We’re not able to speak to him at all,” he added.
Kasim said that he and his brother were “looking to America at the moment” for support, stating, “A lot of the people here have expressed concern. It seems like it might be the only route out at the moment.”
Speaking about meeting US President Donald Trump’s key aide Richard Grenell, he said, “Grennell was very kind to spend some time with us.”
He continued, “We spoke at length and I don’t want to get into details but I’m very, very hopeful from that.”
He said that Imran from a prison cell won the Feb 2024 elections, which went through “vicious rigging”.
“[Despite] the amount of underhand tactics they used before the election to rig it against his favour, [he] still he managed to win.”
Separately, Imran Khan’s sister Aleema Khan said today that the sons would “definitely” come to Pakistan as they had a National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis (Nicop) and they were “citizens of Pakistan”.
“If anything were to happen to Imran’s sons, it would become an international matter,” she told reporters.
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif remarked, “Why would the government stop Imran’s sons from coming to Pakistan?”
He told reporters in Islamabad that the government did not want PTI to “resort to any violence”. “The PTI will not be allowed to pull off another May 9 or Nov 26.”
A day earlier, PTI swiftly rubbished media reports claiming that the incarcerated leader told reporters at Adiala Jail that his sons would not be coming to Pakistan and taking part in or leading any protest.
PTI Central Information Secretary Waqas Akram had stated: “The news circulating in the media regarding Imran Khan Sahib’s children is completely false. Imran Khan sahib has absolutely not stopped his children from coming to Pakistan.
“I would request those media friends who report from Adiala to only broadcast exactly what Khan sahib says. It is inappropriate to take things out of context, selectively, or to present conversations according to their own wishes.”
