ISLAMABAD:
Jemima Goldsmith, the ex-wife of former prime minister Imran Khan, has accused the Pakistani government of harbouring personal vendetta against her children, a claim strongly rejected by a senior ruling party lawmaker on Thursday.
Imran, the founder of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has been incarcerated in the Adial Jail in Rawalpindi since August 2023. He had announced that the party would launch a protest movement against the government after Ashura-e-Muharram, which was observed on Sunday.
This week, Imran’s sister, Aleema Khan, had said that Imran’s sons, Suleman Khan and Kasim Khan, would join the protest movement. However, Prime Minister’s Adviser on Political Affairs Rana Sanaullah later warned that Khan’s sons would be arrested if they joined the protest in Pakistan.
Goldsmith posted on X that Imran had been kept in solitary confinement in prison for nearly two years and preventing her children from speaking to their father and threatening to arrest them if they tried to visit him, tantamount to “personal vendetta”.
“My children aren’t allowed to speak on the phone to their father Imran Khan,” she said. “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.”
Reacting to the remarks, Senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Senator Irfan Siddiqui told a private news channel that Imran’s release from prison did not depend on his children or sisters but on his own behaviour.
“If Imran Khan’s children want to come to Pakistan and do politics, they should come. If they run a movement within the ambit of the law, no one will have any objection. [But] his release is not possible by his children or sisters, rather this matter completely depends on his own behaviour,” he said.
“If Imran Khan wants to bring his children into politics and if they carry out activities according to the law, they have the right to do so,” he said, adding that matters like releases from jails were not decided because of political pressure or family influence, but by the law.
