Khan undeterred after assassination attempt
Former Pakistan PM issues warning to Supreme Court as he plans to rejoin ‘long march’ against leadership
Imran Khan has bristled at the idea that being shot in an “assassination” attempt could cause him to resign from politics and told The Daily Telegraph that he plans to return to campaigning next month. “It was a straightforward assassination attempt,” the former Pakistan prime minister said, as he described the attack in detail for the first time. “When the shooter fired, a man [next to him] put his hand on the gun and so rather than hitting my chest, the bullets hit my legs.”
Standing atop the moving convoy, Imran Khan waved to his supporters thronging in the streets below. He had every reason to be cheerful. A string of election victories suggested he was on the cusp of returning to power as he led a march on the capital to challenge the government. Then the sound of gunfire rang out. “It was a straightforward assassination attempt,” he says, as he describes the attack in detail for the first time. “When the shooter fired, there was a man standing on the street [next to him] and this young supporter, he put his hand on the gun and so rather than hitting my chest, the bullets hit my legs,” Mr Khan says, describing the actions of a bystander who intervened and grappled a handgun away from the attacker.
“This caused my legs to collapse. There was a second shooter but the bullets then went over my head,” he adds, doubling down on his claim that another gunman was involved that contradicts police reports.
Surgeons removed three bullets lodged in his left leg, but one that hit his right shin bone caused damage requiring a debilitating cast and it will be a month until he gains full mobility again.
One party worker, one of a crowd of supporters riding with him atop a converted lorry, was not so lucky and died, with several others injured.
Since he was ousted from power in a no-confidence vote in April, Mr Khan’s popularity seems only to have grown.
A series of landslide victories in recent by-elections, combined with the growing popularity of his public rallies, suggested Mr Khan was well on track to return as prime minister in Pakistan’s next general election, currently scheduled for late 2023.
The lithe 70-year-old former international cricket captain, revered by many in Pakistan as a hero for leading the country’s national team to victory in the 1992 world cup, bristled at the suggestion that his brush with death could cause him to resign from politics.
Instead, he plans to return to the campaign trail next month in Rawalpindi, the same city where prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a gun and suicide bomb attack in 2007.
“Yes, I feel that there would be another attempt [on my life] unless Pakistan’s Supreme Court takes up the issue,” he admits.
During the interview, Mr Khan, who was born in Lahore in 1952 and studied PPE at Oxford, exuded the unwavering conviction that you would expect of one of the country’s most famous sons.
His ascent to political power was a lengthy one – he set up his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-insaf (Pakistan Movement for Justice), in 1996.
Even with his enormous popularity, Mr Khan and his party languished in relative obscurity for years, winning only a single seat – Mr Khan’s – in the general elections in 1997 and 2002.
With Pakistan’s political dynasties, the Bhuttos and the Sharifs who between them had ruled over the country for 60 years, still dominating the country’s politics, it was only in 2013 when the PTI emerged as a major opposition force, winning more than 7.5 million votes and 35 seats.
Despite the progress, Imran Khan shook Pakistani politics when he rode a wave of populist support to be voted prime minister in 2018.
The elections were dogged by accusations of widespread vote rigging and interference carried out by Pakistan’s military, which was now firmly in Mr Khan’s corner. He freely
‘The two main parties have descended into mafia. The mafia operate in two ways – either they buy you or they eliminate you’
admits that he enjoyed the support of the army, but he said Pakistan’s previous dynastic political elite had been overtaken by corruption.
“The two main political parties in Pakistan, rather than being democratic, have descended into mafia,” Mr Khan said.
“I knew that when I joined politics to run against these parties 26 years ago. The mafia operate in two ways – either they buy you or they eliminate you.”
Pakistan is no stranger to political turmoil – not a single one of the 29 prime ministers who have led the country since independence in 1947 has seen out their term in full.
But Mr Khan’s assassination attempt, and his divorce from the country’s string-pulling military and intelligence services – known euphemistically as “the establishment” – threatened to plunge the country into chaos.
Even as he was recovering in hospital, Mr Khan’s supporters were clashing with police and security forces in cities across the country. As prime minister, Mr Khan was accused of political opportunism as he sought – with establishment approval – to present himself as a defender of traditional Islamic values, stirring up populist sentiment among his supporters.
Mr Khan has immersed himself in Islam and married his third wife, Bushra Manika, a Muslim spiritual healer, in 2018.
He has sought to distance himself from his years as a notorious playboy that coincided with the peak of his career as a Test cricket captain, whose Knightsbridge flat, with its painted tiger murals, was once described by a visitor as “a bedroom of great expectations”.
But, Mr Khan is adamant that Pakistanis have bought into his anti-corruption drive and now see him as a genuine challenger to the establishment after falling out with senior military figures in the lead up to his ousting in April.
Shehbaz Sharif, brother of threetime Pakistani prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, who is currently, officially, in the United Kingdom on medical grounds, but faced 10 years’ imprisonment on corruption charges before he fled Pakistan, poached 21 of Mr Khan’s coalition MPS, triggering the no-confidence vote that brought his term to an early end.
Mr Khan said that Mr Sharif ’s party offered his coalition allies up to “one million dollars” each to switch sides and said he had been unjustly removed from power.
In a fiery address from hospital on the day after he had been shot, Mr Khan pointed the finger at Shehbaz Sharif, the interior minister, Rana Sanaullah, and major general Faisal Naseer, a senior figure in Pakistan’s feared Inter Services Intelligence, as being behind the attempted assassination.
Mr Khan alleges the “desperate” Mr Sharif has a “track record” on ordering killings and said he was “not surprised” an attack had been ordered against himself.