Kasim Khan claims govt blocked visa travel to use him as leverage against Imran

Kasim Khan, son of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan, has claimed that Pakistani authorities did not allow him and his brother Sulaiman to travel to Pakistan on visas, alleging that officials wanted them to enter the country on National Identity Cards for Overseas Pakistanis (NICOPs) so they could be arrested and used as leverage against their father. In an interview with CBC News, Kasim said the authorities “don’t want us to go over as British citizens” and instead wanted the brothers to travel on NICOPs. “Travelling on the NICOPs makes it almost certain they'll arrest us as they threatened,” he said. Kasim alleged that the authorities had prevented him and Sulaiman from visiting Pakistan because they were “petrified of foreign intervention”. Asked whether he would still visit Pakistan, Kasim said he would “love to go on a visa”, arguing that it would provide a degree of protection if he and his brother were arrested. “It would give us that safety net where if we did go and they did arrest us, there may even be hope that there would be foreign intervention,” he said. Kasim said he was approaching the issue from a humanitarian standpoint and did not want to be seen as a politician. “I want to see my dad basically,” he said. He also appealed to the British government to recognise his request as humanitarian rather than political, saying he believed British officials were concerned that supporting him or his father could be interpreted as a political statement. “It should be a humanitarian statement,” Kasim said, referring to his father’s imprisonment and describing the cases against him as “bogus”. Earlier in the interview, Kasim said he had last spoken to his father in March, more than seven months ago. He said he and Sulaiman had recorded the call and listened to it often, but declined to disclose much about their conversation. Kasim said Imran appeared “more frustrated than any calls in the past” and told his sons that “they're not treating his eye properly”. He said his father urged them “to be strong and keep doing what we're doing”. Asked whom Imran was able to speak to in Pakistan, Kasim said it was mainly his lawyer. He claimed that Zoom calls between his father and his lawyers from his cell, which concern court proceedings, were being counted as visitations. He said there had also been occasions when Imran was able to see his sisters, but “those times are gone”. Responding to claims by government spokespeople that Imran had received 900 telephone calls and 400 visits, Kasim said: “It's nonsense.” He said the Supreme Court had ordered that the family be allowed to speak to Imran, “along with many other things that haven't been followed”. “We have no genuine medical reports on what his situation is like,” he said, adding, “No one knows his conditions.” Kasim said he was appealing to the British government, as well as “the Canadian government” and “whoever will speak out”, over his father's situation. He said the United Nations had described Imran's situation as torture, while Amnesty International had described it as “inhumane” and arbitrary detention. “It's very, very clear that what's happening is not justice,” he said. Kasim also claimed that Pakistan was “terrified of foreign intervention”, describing it as “the one thing that makes them tremble”. Also Read: Jemima Goldsmith urges UK govt to intervene over Imran Khan’s rights Referring to Pakistan's dealings with US President Donald Trump, he said: “They just gave away everything, you know, the cryptocurrencies, natural resources, Nobel Peace Prizes.” Asked whether he would want his father to accept a deal under which he would leave Pakistan and stay out of politics, Kasim said that “from a selfish perspective” he would like him to accept it. However, he said he did not know enough about his father's current situation to know what decision he would make. “I don't even know if he would take it at this point because he might die tomorrow or the next day,” he said. Kasim described his father as “a very, very strong-willed person” who understood that there were “many other political prisoners”, including more members of their family. This, he said, made it difficult for Imran to agree to a deal. Rejecting the suggestion that his father had “made a deal with the devil”, Kasim said Imran had entered politics to challenge existing political parties and spent 22 years building PTI because he believed the other parties were corrupt. He claimed that other political parties had united against PTI when the party began gaining political traction because they viewed Imran as a threat. Kasim also alleged that the current government had sought to dismantle PTI, claiming that party leaders had been jailed or “tortured into submission”. He said foreign countries needed to intervene to secure the release of political prisoners. Discussing Pakistan's geopolitical position, Kasim said the country had “played their cards well” in the region, but argued that developments inside Pakistan should not be overlooked. “The world needs to look over to Pakistan, to what's going inside of it, not what they're doing in terms of geopolitics,” he said. Asked whether he could imagine not seeing his father again, Kasim said: “I find it hard to imagine that I will see him again.” He said this was why the family had stepped up its campaign. “I don't like it. I don't enjoy it,” he said, adding: “If there's any way that we can support and try and get him out of this situation, we will.”