Imran Khan

• 1. Introduction

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  Imran Khan was shot in the leg on the 3rd of November 2022 in Wazirabad, while leading a march toward Islamabad. The marchers were demanding early elections. One of Khan's supporters was killed in the attack. Another supporter overpowered the alleged gunman, Muhammad Naveed, and threw off his aim.

  Naveed said he had acted alone. He said he targeted Khan because he believed Khan was misleading the people. Khan blamed Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and Major General Faisal Naseer, but he offered no evidence. Officials denied any involvement, and the Inter-Services Public Relations called the accusation baseless and irresponsible.

  The wounded man had been Pakistan's prime minister only months earlier. Before that, he was a bowler famous wherever cricket is played. How does one person become a sporting champion, a hospital founder, a head of government and a prisoner? And why do Pakistanis and outside observers still disagree about which of those roles defines him?

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• 2. The All-Rounder

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  Khan was born in Lahore on the 5th of October 1952, the only son in a family with four daughters. His father, Ikramullah Khan Niazi, was a civil engineer, and his mother was Shaukat Khanum. His father's line is Pathan, from the Niazi tribe. His mother's Burki family had lived near Jalandhar for centuries before moving to Pakistan after Independence in 1947.

  He made his first-class debut at 16 in Lahore. In June 1971 he played his first Test, against England at Edgbaston. That September he arrived at Royal Grammar School Worcester in England, where he did well at cricket.

  In 1972 Cambridge University turned him down, and Keble College, Oxford admitted him instead. There he studied philosophy, politics and economics and graduated in 1975. A cricket enthusiast named Paul Hayes helped smooth his entry. He played for the Oxford Blues side from 1973 to 1975, and for Worcestershire between 1971 and 1976.

  In 1976 and again in 1980, he won the Wetherell Award as the leading all-rounder in English first-class cricket. By 1977 he was playing in Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket. Later he spent the years from 1983 to 1988 with Sussex.

  His most influential skill was reverse swing. He learned it from Sarfraz Nawaz, and he later taught it to Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.

  From January 1980 to 1988 he took 236 Test wickets at an average of 17.77. That total included 18 five-wicket hauls and five ten-wicket hauls. His average and strike rate compared favourably with Richard Hadlee, Malcolm Marshall, Dennis Lillee, Joel Garner and Michael Holding. He was the leading Test wicket-taker of 1982, and his best Test figures were 8 for 58 against Sri Lanka in 1981-82.

  Pakistan's 1982-83 series against India was his peak. He took 40 wickets at an average of 13.95. In January 1983 he became the second cricketer, after Ian Botham, to score a century and take ten wickets in one Test. The next month his Test bowling rating reached 922, the highest since the First World War and the third best ever.

  He also became the first Pakistani bowler to take 200 Test wickets. Wisden Cricketers' Almanack wrote that he bowled with such venom and fire that no Indian batsman except Mohinder Amarnath faced him with any confidence.

  The series cost him a stress fracture in his left shin. At first he could bat but not bowl, and later he could not play at all. An experimental treatment in London, paid for by the Pakistani government, helped him recover by late 1984. The injury kept him out for more than two years.

  His career totals were 88 Tests, 3,807 runs at an average of 37.69, six centuries and 362 wickets. His highest Test score was 136. In one-day internationals he played 175 matches and scored 3,709 runs. His best figures there were 6 for 14, the highest innings figures recorded by any bowler in a losing side.

  After retiring, he admitted to ball tampering during county cricket. He said he had occasionally scratched the side of the ball and lifted the seam. He defended it as commonplace.

  He reached the all-rounder's triple of 3,000 runs and 300 wickets in just 75 Tests, among the first four players to do so. As of 2025, only eleven players have done it, and his pace is the third fastest.

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• 3. Captain And Champion

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  In 1982 Khan took the Pakistan captaincy for the first time, and his side won at Lord's that year. It was Pakistan's first Test victory in England in 28 years. In 1983 Wisden named him one of its Cricketers of the Year.

  Javed Miandad was captain when Khan returned from injury for the 1984-85 home series against Sri Lanka. Miandad then stepped down, citing limited cooperation from Khan, and Khan was reappointed.

  In 1986 Khan used his influence to change how Tests were officiated. Writing in The Guardian, Mike Selvey said that Khan's power was such that he could invite the Indian umpires VK Ramaswamy and Piloo Reporter to stand in a Test against West Indies. Khan wanted to reduce the criticism that Pakistani umpires attracted in home series.

  For the 1989-90 home series against India, he brought in England's John Hampshire and John Holder. A rule requiring one neutral umpire followed in 1994, and in 2002 both umpires had to be independent.

  In 1987 Khan led Pakistan to its first Test series win in India. The same year came its first series victory in England. He retired after the 1987 World Cup, but General Zia-ul-Haq asked him to come back, and he accepted.

  In 1988 Pakistan toured the West Indies successfully. Khan was named Man of the Series after taking 23 wickets in three Tests. In 1989 he became the first Asian, and the eighth non-Australian, to win International Cricketer of the Year.

  As captain he led Pakistan in 48 Tests, winning 14, losing 8 and drawing 26. In 139 one-day internationals, his teams won 75, lost 59 and tied one. He holds the Test record for most wickets as a captain, with 12 five-wicket hauls in an innings and four ten-wicket match hauls. His best innings figures as captain were 8 for 60.

  The 1992 World Cup final was his last match. He had played his final Test in January 1992, against Sri Lanka. In the final, Khan top-scored with 72. Allan Lamb and Neil Fairbrother had added 72 runs together when he brought Wasim Akram back in the 35th over. Akram dismissed Lamb and Chris Lewis. Khan took the last wicket himself, giving Pakistan its first World Cup victory.

  Afterward he explained how he had rallied his side. He said: It was rock-bottom when we lost to South Africa. I told the boys they had to play as if they were cornered tigers. I told them to forget about bowling no-balls and wides, and just go out there and fight.

  In 2009 the ICC inducted him into its Cricket Hall of Fame. By then his best-known work was a hospital named for his mother.

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• 4. Hospital And Giving

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  In 1994 Khan founded the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, Pakistan's first cancer hospital. He named it for his mother, who had died of cancer. He raised money by touring the country, and most of the donations came from ordinary people.

  The aim was to treat underprivileged patients free of charge. As of 2024-70% of patients receive free care.

  In 2001 a cloudburst struck Islamabad. To help the victims, Khan auctioned his signed 1992 World Cup bat and his match sweater, and the bat alone fetched US$20,000. He said these were the last items he owned, because he had already auctioned the rest for the hospital.

  Khan served as UNICEF's Special Representative for Sports. In that role he promoted health and immunisation programmes in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

  On the 23rd of November 2005, Khan was appointed chancellor of the University of Bradford. The next month, in December 2005, he signed a memorandum of understanding to make Namal College in Mianwali an associate college of Bradford. The Mianwali Development Trust built it on land donated by local people. Its goal was to fight unemployment through technical and vocational education, and it opened in 2008.

  In February 2006 he established the Imran Khan Foundation. That year, while visiting his children in London, he also worked with the cricket charity Lord's Taverners. In January 2013 the foundation launched a relief project worth Rs30 million for displaced members of the Mehsud tribe from North Waziristan. It provided food, winter essentials and tents to 2,600 families in Tank, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who had received little government help.

  The Bradford role ended badly. On the 26th of February 2014, the university's students' union moved a no-confidence motion because Khan had missed every graduation ceremony since 2010. On the 30th of November 2014 he stepped down, citing increasing political commitments. Reports said he had effectively been pressed to resign.

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• 5. Playboy To Puritan

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  Tramp, a nightclub in St James's in London, was the centre of Khan's social life in the 1980s. British tabloids called him a playboy and described some of his girlfriends as mysterious blondes. Through the 1980s and 1990s he was regarded as one of the most eligible bachelors. By the early 1990s the British media had named him the Sexiest Man Alive. He said he never drank alcohol.

  Emma Sergeant, an artist and the daughter of British investor Sir Patrick Sergeant, was his first girlfriend. They met in 1982 and visited Pakistan together. She went with him on a hunting trip to Peshawar and a cricket tour of Australia, and at his request she painted his portrait. The Times wrote that she was the one woman he truly loved before his first marriage. Their relationship ended in 1986 after long separations.

  Ana-Luisa White, later known as Sita, was the daughter of the British industrialist Gordon White. Her relationship with Khan began in 1986 and lasted two years. She gave birth to a daughter, Tyrian Jade, in June 1992. In 1997 a California court ruled that Khan was the father, after he failed to answer the suit or a request for a blood test. He denied paternity and offered to accept a ruling from the Pakistani courts. After White died in 2004, her will named Jemima, Khan's former wife, as Tyrian's legal guardian.

  In August 1992 he began dating the German MTV host Kristiane Backer. During their nearly three-year relationship, he introduced her to Islam.

  Khan and Jemima Goldsmith confirmed their engagement on the 12th of May 1995. Four days later they married in a two-minute Islamic Nikah ceremony in Paris. A civil ceremony followed at Richmond register office on the 21st of June, and then the couple moved to Lahore. They had two sons, Sulaiman Isa and Kasim. They divorced on the 22nd of June 2004, because it was difficult for Jemima to adapt to life in Pakistan.

  On the 8th of January 2015, Khan married the British-Pakistani journalist Reham Khan at his Islamabad residence. On the 22nd of October 2015, they announced plans to divorce. In 2017 a PTI member, Ayesha Gulalai, accused him of sending her inappropriate text messages. He denied sending indecent messages, and no inquiry was ever conducted.

  As of 2018 he owned five dogs, including one named Motu at his Bani Gala estate.

  The public never settled on a single image of him. He was known to millions of cricket fans as the Lion of Lahore. In 1996 The Wall Street Journal said he blended anti-elite messages with religious appeals. He answered critics of his past with a line of his own: I have never claimed to be an angel. I am a humble sinner.

  In a 2006 interview, Peter Lloyd described a playboy to puritan U-turn. In 2007 Der Spiegel compared his influence in Pakistan to that of Franz Beckenbauer in football. Critics also gave him mocking nicknames. In 2012, Pankaj Mishra wrote that the drawing rooms of Lahore and Karachi called him Im the Dim and Taliban Khan.

  His third wedding, to his spiritual guide Bushra Bibi on the 18th of February 2018, would later land in court. The mufti who conducted the ceremony testified that Khan's nikah was performed twice. He said the first, on the 1st of January 2018, took place while Bushra was still in iddat, a waiting period after a previous marriage. He alleged that Khan believed marrying on that date would help him become prime minister.

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• 6. Years In Opposition

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  On the 25th of April 1996, Khan founded the political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, known as PTI. His path there began in 1987, when President Zia-ul-Haq offered him a post in the Pakistan Muslim League and he declined. In 1993 he spent three months as tourism ambassador in the caretaker government of Moeenuddin Ahmad Qureshi.

  In the mid-1990s he entered politics in open alliance with Hamid Gul, a former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI. With Gul and Muhammad Ali Durrani, Khan planned a pressure group to act as a civil society watchdog. It never materialised.

  In 1995 Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto feared a military coup that might make Khan prime minister. She responded with punitive measures. State television refused to air archival cricket footage and banned fundraising advertisements for his cancer hospital during Ramadan. Authorities spread rumours that he was under investigation for embezzlement and tax irregularities. Donations to the hospital halved that year.

  Nawaz Sharif once offered Khan the second-in-command position in his party and 30 National Assembly seats. Khan declined. In the 1997 election he stood in NA-53 Mianwali and NA-94 Lahore and lost both to Sharif's PML (N).

  In 1999 Khan backed General Musharraf's coup, believing Musharraf would end corruption and clear out the political mafias. PTI also supported Musharraf in the 2002 referendum. In July 2002, Musharraf's principal secretary Tariq Aziz urged Khan to join a pro-military alliance. The meeting ended in acrimony, and Aziz told him, You will never win your seat now. In the 2002 election Khan entered the National Assembly for the first time, as the only PTI winner.

  The journalist Declan Walsh took a harsh view in August 2005. He called Khan a miserable politician whose affiliations had swerved and skidded like a rickshaw in a rainshower.

  In March 2006 police escorted Khan home and placed him under house arrest after he threatened to protest against President George W. Bush's visit. On the 2nd of October 2007, he joined 85 other MPs in resigning from Parliament. They were protesting Musharraf's presidential run while he remained army chief. When Musharraf declared a state of emergency on the 3rd of November 2007, Khan was put under house arrest but escaped.

  He resurfaced on the 14th of November at a student protest at the University of the Punjab. Activists from Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, restrained him inside a building. He was arrested and spent a week in Central Jail, Dera Ghazi Khan.

  On the 30th of October 2011, Khan spoke to more than 100,000 supporters at the Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore. He called his movement not a flood that is coming, but a tsunami. At least 100,000 people gathered again in Karachi on the 25th of December 2011.

  In August 2012 the Pakistani Taliban threatened to kill him over his march to their tribal stronghold against US drone strikes. They called him a liberal and secular, terms they equated with being an infidel. On the 1st of October they withdrew the threats and offered protection for the rally. On the 6th of October he led a convoy of 10,000 people. Hundreds of security personnel stopped it just miles from South Waziristan's border. After an hour of failed negotiations, he turned the rally back to Tank, about 15 kilometres away.

  On the 7th of May 2013, four days before the election, Khan fell from a lifter while boarding a stage at a rally. He suffered head injuries and four fractured vertebrae. He finished his campaign by addressing an Islamabad rally by video link from his hospital bed.

  The 2013 election took place on the 11th of May, and Sharif's PML (N) won. Khan alleged vote-rigging. PTI became the leading party in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly, and Khan nominated Pervez Khattak to lead its first provincial government.

  On the 14th of August 2014, Khan led a rally from Lahore to Islamabad, demanding Sharif's resignation and an investigation into electoral fraud. He formed a de facto alliance with the Canadian-Pakistani cleric Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri. On the 1st of September their followers tried to storm the prime minister's official residence. The violence left three people dead and more than 595 injured, including 115 police officers. Protesters from both groups also stormed the state-run broadcaster PTV and assaulted staff. Khan ended his 126-day sit-in on the 17th of December 2014, after the Peshawar school massacre.

  Then-PTI president Javed Hashmi alleged that the army had instructed Khan to coordinate his protests with Pakistan Awami Tehreek. The Inter-Services Public Relations said it backed neither group. Historian Ian Talbot noted that Khan denied being a military cat's paw. Talbot judged his actions, if not sinister, at least reckless, and said the army emerged as the winner.

  In March 2015 PTI agreed with the Sharif government to form a judicial commission on electoral fraud, a step facilitated by Army Chief General Raheel Sharif. In July the commission found the elections broadly fair, with no systemic rigging. After the Panama Papers leak in 2016, Khan led protests against Sharif and called for his resignation.

  The political scientist Mohammad Waseem argued that the establishment cultivated Khan as a counterweight to the PPP and the PML (N). He said PTI worked as a shadow Muslim League that attracted electables before 2018. Opposition parties seized on the idea that Khan was selected rather than elected.

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• 7. Prime Minister

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  In the 2018 election Khan stood in five constituencies: Bannu, Islamabad-II, Mianwali-I, Lahore-IX and Karachi East-II. He won all five, a first in Pakistan's electoral history. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had contested four in 1970 and won three.

  Opposition parties alleged massive rigging and military influence in Khan's favour. The Election Commission rejected the allegations. Two days after the vote, Michael Gahler, chief observer of the European Union mission, called the overall situation satisfactory.

  Khan took the oath on the 18th of August 2018 and initially held the interior portfolio. He chose Asad Umar as finance minister. To show austerity he cut the prime minister's staff from 524 to 2. He also auctioned eight buffaloes and 61 luxury vehicles. The BBC reported criticism of him for commuting by helicopter.

  The economy dogged him. In June 2020 Bloomberg said his popularity was falling amid a weak economy, inflation and corruption probes involving aides. After his removal, the economist Atif Mian said Khan had inherited a bad economy and left it worse, with zero increase in average income.

  In July 2018 Chief Justice Saqib Nisar launched a fundraiser for the Diamer-Bhasha and Mohmand dams. Khan urged overseas Pakistanis to give, and as of November 2023 the fund held Rs17.86 billion. In September 2018 he launched the Plant for Pakistan programme. In June 2020 he attended the signing of the $2.5 billion Kohala Hydropower Project, rated at 1,124 MW. In July 2020 he announced 15 national parks. In December 2020 he told the Climate Ambition Summit that Pakistan would scrap two coal projects totalling 2,600 MW. He also set a target of 60% renewable energy by 2030.

  On the 17th of March 2020, Khan addressed the nation for the first time about COVID-19. He ruled out a complete lockdown, citing extreme poverty. He ruled it out again on the 22nd of March, and the army then imposed a nationwide lockdown within 24 hours at the provinces' request. Analyst Ayesha Siddiqa said he appeared confused and reliant on a military that made key decisions without him.

  Khan then adopted a smart lockdown, using military technology to track and trace cases and targeting hotspots. Under the Ehsaas Programme he distributed a lump sum of Rs12,000 to 10 million low-income citizens, Pakistan's largest welfare programme. He gave the construction sector industry status, with tax breaks and a Rs30 billion subsidy to the Naya Pakistan Housing and Development Authority. He also called for debt relief for developing nations, a proposal the United Nations and several African countries backed. Educationist Michael Barber called Ehsaas his flagship initiative and praised its transparency.

  On the 9th of November 2019, Khan inaugurated the Kartarpur Corridor, giving Indian Sikh pilgrims visa-free access. Other decisions drew sharp criticism. In September 2020 he backed chemical castration for sex offenders, a punishment the Council of Islamic Ideology deemed un-Islamic and which was removed from an anti-rape law in late 2021. In June 2021 he suggested that rising rape cases were linked to women wearing very few clothes. Women's rights groups accused him of being a rape apologist. He later said the rapist is always solely responsible.

  On press freedom, the Pakistan Press Foundation reported that he called journalists mafias and blackmailers without evidence. In December 2021 the International Press Institute wrote to him with grave concerns over a proposed media authority ordinance.

  On accountability, Khan ordered an inquiry into the 2020 sugar price surge, which implicated government and opposition figures alike. After the 2021 Pandora Papers revealed offshore holdings of some ministers, he said any wrongdoing was their individual acts. The ICIJ said its documents contained no suggestion that Khan himself owned offshore companies. The Assets Recovery Unit he created helped agencies recover Rs426.4 billion, according to the 2022 Cabinet Division yearbook.

  The army's role remained central. In 2018 Khan appointed Lieutenant General Asim Munir as head of the ISI, and the following year he was replaced by Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed. That same year Khan approved an extension of General Qamar Javed Bajwa's tenure as army chief, calling him the best army chief. In 2023 The Daily Telegraph reported that Munir had proposed investigating corruption allegations involving Khan's wife Bushra Bibi in June 2019, and that he was soon removed. Khan said that was not the reason. In December 2022 Khan called extending Bajwa a big mistake.

  Abroad, Khan clashed with Washington early. In November 2018 President Donald Trump tweeted that he would cut aid because Pakistan had not done a damn thing for the United States. Khan replied that US aid was a minuscule $20 billion, while Pakistan had lost 75,000 lives and over $123 billion in the war on terror. He later said Pakistan would no longer be a hired gun.

  After the 2019 Pulwama attack in Indian-held Kashmir, India blamed Pakistan. Khan denied involvement and authorised the military to answer any Indian aggression with force. Following India's Balakot airstrike, Pakistan carried out Operation Swift Retort and captured the Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman. Khan ordered him released as a de-escalation gesture. Time put him on its 2019 list of the 100 most influential people.

  In September 2019 Khan, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad announced an English-language TV channel to counter Islamophobia. In March 2022, Pakistan led a UN resolution that made the 15th of March the International Day to Combat Islamophobia. In June 2022, two months after Khan left office, FATF removed Pakistan from its grey list. Khan credited his government and Hammad Azhar, while The Express Tribune said his government had done most of the work.

  In February 2022 Khan became the first Pakistani prime minister in two decades to visit Moscow. A video caught him saying, What a time I have come, so much excitement, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. He discussed economic and energy cooperation with Vladimir Putin, including the Pakistan Stream gas pipeline. The United States criticised the visit, and Pakistan later abstained at a UN General Assembly emergency session. Within weeks, the opposition filed the motion that would end his premiership.

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• 8. Fall And Prison

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  On the 7th of March 2022, according to a leaked cable published by The Intercept in August 2023, US State Department officials including Donald Lu raised concern about Khan's stance on the Russian invasion. The cable, Cypher No. I-0678, quoted the US as saying all will be forgiven in Washington if he lost the no-confidence vote. The United States denied trying to remove him and said its concerns were about policy.

  The opposition filed the motion on the 8th of March 2022, citing inflation, high debt, a weakening currency and foreign policy. By the 18th of March some party members had defected and two coalition partners joined the opposition, costing Khan his majority. On the 27th of March he waved the cipher at a rally and alleged foreign interference.

  On the 3rd of April the Deputy Speaker rejected the motion, and President Arif Alvi, acting on Khan's advice, dissolved the National Assembly. The Supreme Court ruled on the 10th of April that the rejection was illegal. The vote then passed, making Khan the first Pakistani prime minister removed by a no-confidence motion.

  In November 2022 Khan said the alleged conspiracy was behind him. He said Pakistan's relationship with the US had been master-servant and that he blamed his own governments more than America.

  The Toshakhana case followed. The Sharif government filed it in August 2022, alleging Khan failed to declare official gifts and the proceeds from selling them. He reportedly kept 58 gifts, 14 of them valued above Rs14,000 each. On the 21st of October 2022, a four-member Election Commission bench unanimously disqualified him for submitting a false asset declaration for 2020-21.

  On the 9th of May 2023, Khan was arrested at the Islamabad High Court in the Al-Qadir Trust case. The case alleges that Khan and his wife received land worth billions from Malik Riaz. In return, the state lost Rs50 billion, or 190 million pounds, recovered by the UK's National Crime Agency. The couple, as the trust's sole trustees, are accused of benefiting, including through 458 kanals for Al-Qadir University in Jhelum.

  The arrest set off the May 9 riots, with PTI supporters allegedly attacking military and government installations. The Supreme Court declared the arrest illegal. On the 12th of May he received protective bail, which barred re-arrest on the same charges for two weeks.

  On the 5th of August 2023, he was arrested again and sentenced to three years for illegally selling state gifts worth over 140 million rupees. On the 29th of August an appeals court suspended that sentence and granted bail. A special court kept him in jail in the cypher case, and he has since been held at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.

  On the 30th of January 2024, he was sentenced to ten years in the cypher case. The next day came 14 years in a Toshakhana case, suspended on the 1st of April. On the 3rd of February he and Bushra were each sentenced to seven years and fined 500,000 rupees over her iddat. The Islamabad High Court overturned the cypher conviction on the 3rd of June 2024, and the marriage conviction fell on the 13th of July. He stayed in prison on other charges.

  The conditions of his detention are disputed. In August 2023 the government told the Supreme Court his meals included bread, omelette, curd, fruit, rice and desi mutton cooked in ghee. In May 2024 Khan told the court he was in solitary confinement with restricted meetings. The government replied in June that his cell had a walking area, cooler, television and exercise equipment. In a July interview with The Sunday Times, he said he was held in a small death cell usually reserved for terrorists.

  In June 2024 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called for his release, saying the detention was arbitrary and politically motivated. In September 2024 Amnesty International noted a pattern of weaponisation of the legal system to keep him detained and away from political activity.

  Khan says the imprisonment is politically motivated and blames the military establishment and Shehbaz Sharif's government. The military called the claims fabricated and malicious, and Sharif called them blatant lies. In June 2024 Khan told the Supreme Court by video link that Pakistan was under undeclared martial law.

  On the 8th of October 2024, police charged him with attempted murder over a police officer's death during protests by his supporters. On the 22nd of November the Islamabad High Court granted him bail in the Toshakhana case, but other cases kept him jailed. As of December 2024, he had been named in 186 cases across Pakistan.

  On the 17th of January 2025, an accountability court sentenced him to 14 years in the Al-Qadir Trust case. On the 21st of August 2025 the Supreme Court granted him bail in eight May 9 riot cases, but that sentence kept him jailed. On the 21st of December 2025 he received 17 years and a fine of Rs16.4 million in the Toshakhana-II case. The court found that he had acquired a Bulgari jewellery set from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, valued at about Rs80 million, for Rs2.9 million.

  In December 2023 Khan nominated Gohar Ali Khan to replace him as PTI chairman, and Gohar was elected unopposed. That month the Election Commission rejected Khan's nomination papers for the 2024 election, because he had been convicted and disqualified. Before the vote, his name was barred from the media, and TIME reported that constituency boundaries were redrawn to allegedly benefit his opponents. He issued a message created with artificial intelligence urging supporters to celebrate. At least 90 candidates he backed won seats, all of them forced to run as independents. He told them to sit in opposition nationally.

  On the 16th of October 2024, Oxford University officials disqualified Khan from the race for chancellor. They cited his conviction and active political role. Zulfi Bukhari had submitted the application in August, and the university accepted 38 of more than 40 applicants.

  Polls show a divided public. A Gallup Pakistan survey in February 2023 found that 61% of Pakistanis held a good opinion of him. He has been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2019 and in 2025.

  In February 2026, fourteen former international cricket captains appealed to Pakistan's government, expressing profound concern over reports about Khan's health and prison conditions.

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