Imran Khan is dead. At least he may as well be. Last week, the former England cricket captain Michael Atherton stuck his neck out and interviewed Khan’s two sons, Sulaiman, 29, and Kasim, 27, at Lord’s for Sky TV. Showing maturity and restraint, of which their father would be proud, Imran’s sons explained at length how the Pakistan government was orchestrating their father’s murder.

The response to the interview was explosive. In protest, the craven Pakistan Cricket Board immediately threatened to withdraw the country’s team from the ongoing Lord’s Test match. They did not follow through. Sulaiman reported that his father, in addition to having a problem with one of his eyes, had ‘rising blood pressure due to isolation and solitary confinement’. Despite a supreme court order for him to be taken to a hospital to see his own doctors (and his sister), the government flouted the instructions and only allowed a ‘visibly stressed’ Imran a brief meeting with a government physician.

After being removed as prime minister in 2022 by skulduggery involving Pakistan’s kleptocrat political parties, the army and very likely the CIA, Imran used his charisma to bring out his supporters in huge yet peaceful rallies. Several failed assassination attempts followed. At one rally marching on Wazirabad, while standing on the bed of a truck, he was shot in the leg and thigh by two gunmen. Imran accused his successor as prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, of being behind the attack. (Sharif called that allegation ‘false and cheap’.)

He was a magnet for women and had a particular fondness for the daughters of London’s high society

He was a magnet for women and had a particular fondness for the daughters of London’s high society

Later, in 2023, Imran, the only honest political leader in Pakistani politics, was locked up on trumped-up corruption charges; he has remained incarcerated under increasingly tough conditions ever since. In essence he is in prison because he is not corrupt. The Pakistan people know it. Khan is the most popular politician in the country’s history and, to the despair of the legacy parties, remains so despite his incarceration.

His imprisonment may not last for long. Locked in an incommodious cell for 23 hours a day, he is denied visitors and books. These are appalling conditions for an ill 72-year-old who has to survive the brutal summer heat without air conditioning. This is designed to kill him. His sons, who for the first two years were allowed to speak to him, albeit in often truncated calls, are now denied contact.

The Pakistan government officially says that Sulaiman and Kasim are allowed to visit their father, but at the same time denies them visas. They haven’t spoken to him for six months and he has had no visitors for ten. The government, led by........

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