Global Courant 2023-05-10 04:42:00
ISLAMABAD – Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan was arrested Tuesday on corruption charges. Government officials alleged that the former prime minister and his wife had received land as a bribe through a charity.
Khan and his aides have denied any wrongdoing.
Below is some background information on the former prime minister and what is known about the land acquisition.
What is his background?
Khan, 70, was born into an affluent family in Lahore and studied at Oxford University. He first achieved international fame in the late 1970s on the cricket field. In 1995, he married a British heiress, Jemima Goldsmith.
A year later, Khan attempted to turn his cricket popularity – he had led Pakistan to its only World Cup triumph in 1992 – into a political career by founding his own party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or the Movement for Justice .
As a politician, he portrayed himself as a reformer who offered an alternative to Pakistan’s entrenched political dynasties.
How did he come to power?
For more than a decade, Khan struggled to gain political clout and was mocked for his ambitions.
In 2011, he started to gain political momentum, drawing hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis to his rallies. Many were energized by his populist, anti-corruption and anti-American message.
By then, Khan had embraced a devout form of Islam and was attempting to transform his personal image.
In 2018, Khan married his spiritual advisor, Bushra Bibi, for the third time. (His marriage to Goldsmith had ended in divorce, and he was briefly married to a journalist, Reham Khan, in 2015.)
After winning the support of military leaders, Khan became prime minister in 2018.
Many of his rivals accused the military of rigging the election in his favor – an accusation both Khan and the military have denied.
He ushered in a new foreign policy away from the United States and closer to Russia and China.
