Imran Khan

Biography

Imran Khan was born in Lahore in 1952. He attended Aitchison College and the Cathedral School in Lahore, moved to the Royal Grammar School Worcester in England in 1971, and from 1972 studied philosophy, politics and economics at Keble College, Oxford, graduating in 1975 and playing for the university cricket team. He made his Test debut for Pakistan against England in 1971. As captain he pressed for neutral umpires, and he led Pakistan to victory at the 1992 Cricket World Cup before retiring; he entered the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in 2009.

After cricket he founded the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital, Pakistan's first cancer hospital, and in 1996 the political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which he chaired until 2023. He was also chancellor of the University of Bradford from 2005 to 2014. He backed Pervez Musharraf's 1999 coup but broke with him in 2002, the year he first won a seat in the National Assembly. In the 2018 general election he won all five constituencies he contested, and he became prime minister at the head of a PTI-led coalition in August 2018.

His government ran a large welfare programme during the COVID-19 pandemic, and he spoke out against Islamophobia. In April 2022 he became the first Pakistani prime minister removed by a no-confidence vote, a result he blamed on American pressure. He was barred from office over the Toshakhana case, survived an assassination attempt in November 2022 and was arrested in May 2023, which set off nationwide riots; he was arrested again that August. He was later sentenced to long prison terms in corruption cases, which he says are politically motivated, and has been held in Adiala Jail since 2023.