PTI founder Imran Khan’s sons are planning a trip to Pakistan in January. They said their father was being held in a “death cell”.
In an interview with Sky News, Kasim and Suleiman Khan, who currently live in London, said that their fathers’ prison visits remain blocked and that they were concerned about their safety and well-being.
Imran Khan’s sisters had arranged another sit-in protest outside Adiala jail, where the former leader is being held. PTI members alleged that the authorities had used chemical-laced water to disperse the protest.
The sons said that they were planning their trip after being told that they were welcome to visit. They said that Defence Minister Khawaja Asif had told them that they were “welcome to come and visit him”. Kasin said, “We are now planning to because they said it openly. So — unless they go against their word — we should be hopefully going in January. We have applied for our visas. It hasn’t come through yet. We are expecting it to come through, so we are planning a trip in January.”
Imran’s family and party have expressed concern about the condition in which he is being kept in prison. A United Nations special rapporteur also warned that the leader is being held in conditions that could amount to inhumane or degrading treatment.
When interviewer Yalda Hakim asked them whether they would ask Imran to cut a deal after seeing him, Kasim said, “What you have to understand is it’s his life. It’s literally his passion and his goal. He calls it his life’s purpose to help rid Pakistan of corruption”.
“And so if he just took a deal and came over to us and lived in England, I know there would be this burning desire and this aching that he has left his country for dead. And he would be depressed, to be honest. I know he would.”
“This is his goal, and as much as we’d love to have our father watching all of our cricket matches or football matches over here, he has a far greater purpose. So, you can only respect it,” he said.
“I want to know how we can get him out, how we can help, because the main point is we feel so helpless at this point. I mean, there’s so much to catch up on.”
Kasim also said that Imran would refuse to talk about his jail condition. “He’s like, ‘Oh, you know, don’t worry about me. How’s everything?” Kasim said. He also said that he would ask about their grandmother, Lady Annabel Goldsmith, who died in October.
He added that Imran’s jail conditions were “not bad, they are awful.” Suleiman said that he was being kept in a “death cell. “There are barely any lights, sometimes the electricity is cut off, there’s dirty water… completely substandard conditions that don’t meet international laws for any sort of prisoner,” he claimed.
