Imran Khan’s sons on their jailed father – podcast

Imran Khan’s sons on their jailed father – podcastAfter a dramatic week in Pakistan, Kasim and Sulaiman Khan talk to Today in Focus about the continued imprisonment of their father, the former prime minister and cricket legend Imran Khan. With reporting from Osman Samiuddin

It was a 20-minute phone call. As Kasim and Sulaiman Khan recall, it was at an unexpected time and from a random WhatsApp number, but they knew what it was: a call from their father from a Pakistani jail cell.

It was in March, and they have not spoken to him since. Their father is Imran Khan – the former prime minister, cricket legend and the most famous person ever to have come out of Pakistan.

As journalist Osman Samiuddin explains, it has now been more than three years since Khan was jailed, serving a sentence of more than 30 years. And this week, Samiuddin tells Nosheen Iqbal, there has been a further escalation in Pakistan. Khan’s supporters had planned a march from their party’s heartlands in a northern province to the capital Islamabad, demanding his release, or at the very least, more humane treatment in jail.

Instead, the party’s regional leadership was dismissed, a state of emergency was declared, and the road to Islamabad was blocked with shipping containers. So what now for Imran Khan? And will he ever see his sons again?