PTI founder Imran Khan’s son Kasim Khan has said he and his brother Suleiman have applied for their visas and are planning a trip to Pakistan in January, while also commenting on the conditions in which the ex-premier was kept and saying that he was being held in a “death cell”.
The remarks were made during an interview to Yalda Hakim for Sky News, which came as another sit-in held outside Adiala jail by Imran’s sisters over being denied a meeting with him was dispersed using water cannons; the party alleged that authorities used “chemical-laced” water.
As court-ordered prison visits stay blocked, Imran’s family and party have expressed concerns about the conditions in which he is being kept inside the prison. A United Nations’ special rapporteur has also warned that Imran is being held in conditions that could amount to inhuman or degrading treatment.
During their interview with Hakim, released early on Wednesday, Kasim and Suleiman, who live in London, were asked whether they had tried to engage with the Pakistani government to get permission to visit Imran.
Hakim also noted that they had previously talked about “being warned not to come” even though Defence Minister Khawaja Asif had said they “were welcome to come and can visit him [Imran]”.
At that, Kasim replied: “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.”
Hakim then asked them what they would say to Imran upon seeing him, and whether they would ask him to consider “cutting a deal”.
But Kasim explained that “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 purpose which is far greater. So, you can only respect it,” he said.
Asked what else they would want to say to Imran or what message they would like to send to him, Kasim 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.”
He also shared that during their interactions, Imran would always refuse to talk about his jail conditions.
“He’s like, ‘Oh, you know, don’t worry about me. How’s everything?’” Kasim said, adding that he would also enquire about their grandmother Lady Annabel Goldsmith, who died in October.
“We haven’t spoken to him since she died only a couple of months ago, and I would love to speak to him about that. He called her his mother after his own mother had passed, and their relationship was so close. So, I’d love to speak to him about that,” he added.
When Hakim asked them whether they think Imran “will ever get out”, their reply was not too optimistic.
“The conditions are getting worse. The people in power are becoming more entrenched. So, it’s very hard to see a way out and a lot of the people we speak to […] are seeming less and less confident every time we speak to them.
“So, we’re now worried we might never see him again,” Kasim said.
He added that while the defence minister had said that they were welcome to visit Imran, he had his doubts.
Suleiman also pointed out that Imran was “not the sort of person who’s going to make any compromises or cut a deal. So yeah, at the moment, that looks like the only easy route out, but I think international pressure is always an effective way of forcing change in these situations”.
‘Awful conditions’
Hakim also asked the two about the condition of Imran’s jail cell, to which Kasim said, “The conditions are awful. Like, they are not bad, they are awful.”
Suleiman said the cell in which Imran was kept had been described as 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.
They were also asked about “what went through their minds” when they came across rumours about Imran’s possible death on social media.
Suleiman described that experience as “incredibly stressful”.
“I went straight to my family group chat because that’s the only reliable source that we have on the ground in Pakistan,” he added.
For his part, Kasim said coming across the rumours on social media was “jarring”.
It “obviously pulls you out of whatever you are trying to do in your normal life. Especially, [given] how helpless we are over here, not able to do much at all,” he said.
Hakim also brought up the subject of one of Imran’s sisters, Uzma, being allowed to meet him in jail in early December after weeks of restricted access. Following the meeting, a post on Imran’s X account against the military leadership, dubbed his message from jail, had led to a hard-hitting press briefing by Inter-Services Public Relations Director General Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry.
Asked what Uzma shared with Kasim and Suleiman after the meeting, the latter replied that she had assured them that Imran was well but furious about the conditions he had been kept in.
“And he put out — he dictated a tweet (post on social media platform X) I think through her, or maybe potentially through her. And I think that tweet has partly led to this reaction from the establishment to completely try and isolate him,” Suleiman said.
When Hakim asked them what would be their message to the international community, Suleiman said, “At minimum, just to make sure that the standards of international human rights are being upheld, and right now they’re clearly being violated.
“We just want to ensure that basic human rights for our father are being respected,” he said.
He also highlighted the need for “independent monitoring” of Imran’s conditions “because we have no idea what it’s like until someone goes to see him and speaks to him”.
For his part, Kasim stressed the need for implementing court orders for Imran’s visitation rights, respecting the rule of law and allowing the PTI founder to see his personal physician.
Hakim also asked the brothers about what Imran’s opinion would be on recent constitutional amendments in Pakistan, especially the immunity given to the army chief under the tweaks.
To that, Kasim said he believed Imran would not be surprised.
“Because I think it’s quite clear that it was heading towards basically what it is now, which is a military dictatorship in everything but name. I think he probably knows about this already. And part of the reason he’s being silenced, isolated is because they know that he’s inevitably not going to stand for this,” he added.
‘Afraid of his popularity’
The duo also shared that they were looking to do more advocacy and visit Brussels or Geneva in January to speak to politicians and officials about Imran’s situation.
Hakim then asked them whether they ever thought that one day they would be lobbying for their father’s release.
“Yes, probably, realistically, because we spent, he especially, my brother spent a lot of time asking him not to go into politics when there were kind of these dangerous characters killing people consistently,” Kasim replied.
Adding that several other Pakistani politicians had also been imprisoned, Kasim said: “This is just completely different. They’re not all tortured in solitary confinement cells and staying there for upwards of two years.”
Without naming anyone, Hakim then asked them, “What do you think they’re afraid of?”
“Popularity,” the two replied in unison.
“He’s the most popular person in the country by a landslide. So the moment he’s out, there’s no chance they’ll hold on to power. So they’re desperately clinging on to it however they can,” Kasim said.
‘Doesn’t sound like solitary confinement’
Meanwhile, Mosharraf Zaidi, who is Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s spokesperson for foreign media, also appeared on Hakim’s show and said that Imran had been incarcerated for around 860 days.
“How many unique visits — interviews is what we call them in our system — do you think he’s had in those 860 days? … He’s supposed to get, as you said, one every week, and it’s been about 112 weeks. He’s had 870,” he said.
He further said that Imran had held 137 meetings with his sisters, 45 with Aleema, 45 with Uzma and 43 with Noreen, noting that Aleema had held two more meetings since the numbers were tabulated.
“This doesn’t sound like solitary confinement to me,” Zaidi said, adding that Imran had held 451 interviews with his lawyers. He insisted that Imran’s personal physician was allowed to see him.
“There was a gap of about three and a half weeks in which the meetings were suspended. Now, those meetings were suspended because in every instance, there was a huge security issue that was being created. Every interaction that the former prime minister has had with his lawyers, with his family, becomes a political meeting,” Zaidi said.
When Hakim pointed out that his sons had not spoken to him for five months, Zaidi said, “His last phone call was in September. I’m not sure whether one of the boys was on it or not.”
He further said that neither he nor anyone in the government wanted to “get into an argument with two young men who have not seen their father in a long time but against whom there is no sanction to not see or not speak to their father”.
At this point, Hakim pointed out that Zaidi had not answered any of her questions, to which he said he could not respond if she did not let him.
“Your questions are coming from a place of genuinely seeking the truth and seeking justice … I think that these are honest people who are dealing with bad information. And so what I’m trying to do is provide you information but you don’t let me get all of it out,” he said.
He also read out rule 265 of the Prison Rules, which states, “The discussion of political matters shall not be allowed at these interviews.”
He said that since Imran had been jailed, there had been 575 posts from his X account.
At this point, Hakim pulled up an old X post by Zaidi from 2023 when Imran had been arrested, in which he had called the move “disgraceful”. She also read out a similar post from 2024. She then asked whether he stood by his posts.
“At the time, I [posted] them, absolutely,” he said, adding that more developments had taken place since then.
He pointed to the May conflict with India, the 2024 attacks by Iran and constant attacks emanating from Afghanistan, saying that the way Pakistan had to respond to security and governance challenges had changed.
“Are you saying Imran Khan is a threat?” Hakim asked, to which Zaidi replied, “Absolutely.”
At one point, Hakim pointed to the report by the UN special rapporteur, asking Zaidi whether he thought she was lying.
“I don’t think anybody is lying. I think people are consuming bad information,” he said, then pointing out that Hakim had not visited Pakistan in a decade.
“If you give me a visa, I would happily [visit]. Would you give me an interview with Imran Khan?” she asked. Zaidi responded by saying she could interview Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
“I’m not sure that, given the prison rules that I just cited, we’ll be allowed to afford Sky News the chance to break Pakistan’s laws,” he said.
“I think people want rule of law, but they want it very specifically in circumstances that allow Imran Khan to enjoy total freedom at a time of incarceration. The whole purpose of being a convicted criminal is that you’re in jail and you lose your freedom,” he said. He further said that concerns raised by the UN had come from those who “had not visited Pakistan”.
