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Former Pakistani prime minister’s party alleges inhumane treatment of family as he nears two years in prison
Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, are being kept in increasingly harsh and degrading prison conditions, his party has alleged while urging Western countries to speak out against what it has called systematic political persecution and human rights violations.
Zulfiqar Ali Bukhari, a close aide to Mr Khan, 72, said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief and his wife had been subjected to “psychological” torment in prison. Ms Bibi was “gravely ill”, he said, and “fainted in prison” due to the heat nearly two weeks ago.
The PTI has sounded alarm over the treatment in prison of Mr Khan and his wife, 50, especially given the ongoing heatwave in Pakistan.
They’ll tick the box by saying we have provided a fan or a cooler, but they’ll provide one that doesn’t work,” Mr Bukhari said, referring to prison authorities.
In the case of Mr Khan, he alleged, “they’ll just cut the electricity off in the middle of the day for hours, you know, to basically torture”.
He told The Independent that even the water supplied to Ms Bibi for ablutions had “got mud and sand and dirt inside of it, purposely.”
“By torturing her, they know how much it hurts Imran Khan,” he said, “that creates further emotional burden on him which they feel will help try to break him down or break her down”. “It’s just inhumane treatment that both of them are receiving, and due to that, Bushra Bibi’s health has deteriorated massively,” he added.
In January this year, Mr Khan and Ms Bibi were sentenced to 14 and 7 years in prison, respectively, for corruption in what has become known as the al-Qadir Trust case. They were found guilty of taking land as a bribe from a real estate tycoon in exchange for laundered money that had been returned to Pakistan by UK authorities.
Mr Khan, who was already in jail in several other pending cases, denied the bribery charges and called the verdict politically motivated.
In August Mr Khan will complete two years in prison. He still faces nearly 150 charges, ranging from corruption to terrorism.
Source:The Independent