Pakistan: Ex-wife Jemima expresses concerns over threats to Imran Khan’s sons

Islamabad: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Imran Khan’s former wife Jemima Goldsmith on Thursday slammed the Pakistani government over threats to arrest their children, if they attempt to visit their father in prison.

“My children are not allowed to speak on the phone to their father Imran Khan. He has been in solitary confinement in prison for nearly two years. Pakistan’s government has now said if they go there to try to see him, they too will be arrested and put behind bars. This doesn’t happen in a democracy or a functioning state. This isn’t politics. It’s a personal vendetta,” Jemima said in a post on X.

The remarks came after Rana Sanaullah, the Pakistan Prime Minister’s Advisor on Political Affairs, threatened to arrest Imran Khan’s sons.

“If Imran Khan’s sons come to Pakistan and join the movement, they will be arrested,” Sanaullah said during an interview with a private TV channel.

Recently, while speaking outside the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, Imran Khan’s sister Aleema revealed that Khan’s sons, Kasim and Suleiman, who are based in the United Kingdom, have plans to visit the US to raise awareness before heading to Pakistan to participate in the PTI’s upcoming political movement.

Addressing the media outside the Islamabad High Court (IHC), PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja said, “It is the right of the sons of the PTI founder to be a part of the movement”.

In a post on social media, the former Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician’s son Kasim Khan raised concerns over the treatment meted out to his father in prison.

“My father, former Prime Minister Imran Khan, has now spent over 700 days in prison – held in solitary confinement. He is denied access to his lawyers, not allowed visits from his family, fully cut off from us (his children), and even his personal doctor is refused entry. This is not justice. It is a deliberate attempt to isolate and break a man who stood for rule of law, democracy, and Pakistan,” Kasim posted on X.

Imran Khan has been lodged in a jail since August 2023 and faces a series of charges, including corruption and terrorism, following his removal from power through a no-trust motion by the opposition in April 2022.

IANS