ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s top judicial body has ordered the urgent transfer of incarcerated former prime minister Imran Khan to a leading public hospital for comprehensive medical evaluation, addressing long-running claims that the 73-year-old opposition leader has been denied adequate specialized care behind bars.
A three-judge panel of the Supreme Court issued the ruling Tuesday, mandating that Khan be moved to Islamabad’s Shifa International Hospital within 48 hours, with a mandatory eye specialist included as part of his care team. The court also granted Khan new rights to weekly in-person family visits and daily phone contact with his two sons, who currently live outside Pakistan.
Khan, a world-famous cricket captain who transitioned to politics and held the prime minister’s office from 2018 to 2022, has remained in custody since August 2023. He has been convicted in multiple high-profile cases, including corruption and charges of leaking state secrets, with a combined 17-year prison sentence handed down against him and his wife Bushra Bibi late last year. The former leader has consistently denied all wrongdoing, framing the more than 100 pending cases against him as a coordinated political campaign to remove him from public life.
His legal team has repeatedly raised alarms over his declining health, particularly his rapidly worsening eyesight. In February, lawyers told the court that Khan retained just 15% vision in his right eye after prison officials failed to approve his request for specialist treatment – a claim government officials previously rejected.
In response to the Supreme Court’s ruling, Zulfikar Bukhari, a senior advisor to Khan, told Agence France-Presse that while the decision was welcome, it comes too late to stop the permanent deterioration of the former prime minister’s health. “We wish it had happened sooner so his eye and general health would not have deteriorated this much,” Bukhari said.
In its written order, the three-judge panel emphasized its binding legal responsibility to protect the well-being of all detainees. “We are mindful of the constitutional and legal obligation… to safeguard the life, health, dignity and security of the prisoner,” the order read.
Both judicial officials and leaders of Khan’s political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, have issued urgent warnings to supporters against gathering outside Shifa International Hospital when Khan is transferred. Any unapproved public assembly would violate the terms of the court’s order, officials noted.
The Pakistani federal government has not yet issued any public statement responding to the Supreme Court’s ruling. Khan’s arrest and imprisonment in 2023 sparked massive nationwide protests by his millions of supporters, which were met with a widespread crackdown by federal and provincial authorities. Despite more than a year behind bars, the former prime minister remains one of the most influential and popular political figures in Pakistan, retaining a massive grassroots following across the country.