Aleema Khan, sister of former Pakistan prime minister and cricket icon Imran Khan, has voiced grave fears for her brother's safety, claiming his life is under serious threat as she continues campaigning for his release from prison.
Speaking to A Current Affair on Tuesday, Aleema said her brother urgently needed international support to stay safe, delivering a stark warning about the conditions she believes he is being subjected to behind bars.
"They will kill him in jail," she said, describing a situation she fears is deteriorating with each passing month that Imran remains isolated from family, legal counsel and independent medical oversight.
The 73 year old former prime minister has been imprisoned since 2022, having been charged in more than 100 separate cases involving allegations of corruption and the leaking of classified state information, all of which he continues to strongly deny.
According to his supporters, Imran has spent the past three years confined largely in isolation within a small cell, with repeated claims that he has been denied access to adequate medical treatment throughout that period.
Aleema last saw her brother in person in October of last year, recalling a defiant message he passed on to her during that visit. "I would never bow to a pharaoh or tyranny. I would die in jail but not do that," he told her.
She acknowledged that speaking out publicly carries personal risk, admitting she too fears facing imprisonment or worse simply for continuing to advocate on her brother's behalf from outside Pakistan.
Describing the physical conditions inside his cell, Aleema said temperatures have reportedly reached as high as 50 degrees Celsius at times. "He's never complained," she said, despite what she described as consistently harsh surroundings.
She further alleged that authorities have severed nearly all contact between Imran and the outside world. "They also disconnected him from any contact from his family, from his children, from meetings, from his lawyers," she said.
Aleema linked her brother's declining health directly to his prolonged isolation, claiming he has developed hypertension as a result, alongside separate allegations concerning delayed medical attention causing lasting physical harm.
"Two weeks, they don't allow a doctor to come and see him," she said, adding that the resulting delay had caused permanent damage to his eye, something she framed not as illness but as deliberate mistreatment.
Despite the grim picture she painted, Aleema insisted her brother's imprisonment had failed to silence him, describing Imran as someone who continues to carry the hopes of millions of ordinary Pakistanis regardless of his confinement.
"They thought they put him in prison and he'd disappear forever, he is not going to disappear because he's the voice of the people," she said, framing his continued detention as fuel rather than an obstacle to his cause.
International backing for Imran has also grown in recent weeks, with more than 20 former Australian Test captains, including Greg Chappell, Steve Waugh and Adam Gilchrist, signing a letter calling for humane treatment and independent medical care.
Aleema said that support carried real weight given the public profile of those involved, noting that statements from high profile cricketers tend to reach audiences and governments far beyond Pakistan's own borders.
She ended her appeal with a broader message aimed at supporters both at home and abroad, framing the fight for her brother's welfare as inseparable from a wider struggle for freedom and dignity across Pakistan.
"If you don't break the chains of your own slavery, if you don't stand up for yourself, you will always remain slaves," she said, echoing words she attributed to her brother throughout his years in politics.