A spokesman for imprisoned former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Monday that Khan has been denied hospital care and treatment from his personal doctor, leading to an 85-percent loss of vision in his right eye from a blood clot.
Khan spokesman Zulfi Bukhari told Sky News that a “fully equipped ambulance” was sent on Sunday to the Adiala prison where Khan is being held, but Khan should have been taken to “an appropriate hospital with the appropriate equipment.”
Bukhari said all information from the prison pertaining to Khan’s health is mere “hearsay,” because the authorities will not allow Khan’s physician to examine him.
“Why are we getting phone calls and just being told reports? Why is his personal doctor not allowed to be present? Or at the very least, see him now after they’ve done the check-up? The same goes for any family member,” Bukhari complained.
“Why is he being kept in secrecy in isolation? And why is this whole procedure being done in this big secret format, which no one else is allowed to take part in?” he asked.
Khan, 73, is a former cricket star who served as prime minister of Pakistan from August 2018 until April 2022, when he was ousted by a rare vote of no confidence from parliament.
Khan promptly launched a political comeback effort, but was shot in the leg during an assassination attempt in November 2022 and was soon under investigation for over a hundred charges of corruption and abuse of power during his term in office. He and his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), insist all of the charges against him are political fabrications, but the courts disagreed.
Khan was arrested in 2023 and has been jailed ever since on corruption and national security charges, racking up more prison time as additional cases were decided against him, even though the conviction that first landed him in prison was overturned by the Islamabad High Court in August 2023.
In January, government officials announced Khan had undergone a surgical procedure for his eye condition, enraging family members and supporters because they were not previously informed of his health condition.
On Monday, Pakistani Cabinet Minister Tariq Fazal Chaudhry said doctors had examined Khan in prison and concluded “no major complications have emerged” from his surgery. His personal physician, Dr. Aasim Yusuf, said he was told about the “improvement” in Khan’s eyesight, but he has not been allowed to examine the patient himself.
Khan’s two grown sons, Sulaiman and Kasim Khan, said they were allowed to speak to their father for the first time in months over the weekend, but only for about 20 minutes and their repeated requests to visit him have been denied. They claimed Khan is being “psychologically tortured” in a “death cell” and feared they would never see him again. Spokesman Bukhari said Khan has not seen his sons in person in three years.
Kasim Khan said on social media last week that his father’s lost eyesight was a “direct consequence of 922 days of solitary confinement, medical neglect (denied blood tests) and the deliberate denial of proper treatment in jail.”
“The responsibility lies squarely with the regime in power, the Army Chief and the puppets enabling this cruelty. This physical deterioration is happening under their orders, their watch and their responsibility,” he said.
On Saturday, Imran Khan’s legal team filed a petition with the Islamabad High Court to release him on medical grounds and suspend his 17-year prison sentence. His humanitarian appeal was supported on Tuesday by a petition from over a dozen former cricket captains, including two from Pakistan’s rival India, Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev.
“Many of us competed against him, shared the field with him, or grew up idolizing his all-round brilliance, charisma, and competitive spirit,” Khan’s former sporting colleagues noted.
“Recent reports concerning his health – particularly the alarming deterioration of his vision while in custody – and the conditions of his imprisonment over the past two and a half years have caused us profound concern,” they said.
The former cricket stars said Khan “deserves to be treated with the dignity and basic human consideration befitting a former national leader and a global sporting icon.”
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