Background and career
Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi (born 5 October 1952) is a Pakistani former cricketer, philanthropist, and politician who served as the 19th prime minister of Pakistan from August 2018 until April 2022. As a cricketer, he captained the Pakistan national cricket team to victory in the 1992 Cricket World Cup. After retiring from cricket, he established the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, Pakistan's first cancer hospital. He is the founder of the political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and was its chairman from 1996 to 2023. Born in Lahore, he graduated from Keble College, Oxford. He began his international cricket career in a 1971 Test series against England. He advocated for neutral umpiring during his captaincy. He played his last Test in January 1992 against Sri Lanka and retired after the 1992 Cricket World Cup final. In 2009, he was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame. In his bachelorhood, Khan had several relationships, including with artist Emma Sergeant, his first girlfriend, and Ana-Luisa (Sita) White, daughter of industrialist Gordon White. A California court ruled him to be the father of White's daughter Tyrian Jade, a claim he denied. He married Jemima Goldsmith in 1995, with whom he had two sons; Reham Khan in 2015; and Bushra Bibi in 2018. His first two marriages ended in divorce. He supported General Musharraf's 1999 Pakistani coup d'état but fell out with him around July 2002, and was first elected to the National Assembly of Pakistan in the 2002 Pakistani general election. In the 2018 Pakistani general election, he contested five constituencies and became the first person in Pakistan's electoral history to win all five; he subsequently became prime minister in a PTI-led coalition government. During his premiership, he launched Pakistan's largest welfare programme during the COVID-19 pandemic and spoke out against Islamophobia in the Western world. In February 2022, he became the first Pakistani prime minister since 2002 to visit Moscow, arriving on the day the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. In April 2022, he became the first Pakistani prime minister to be removed from office through a no-confidence motion. He alleged US involvement in his removal, blaming Washington for opposing his foreign policy that sought closer relations with China and Russia. In October 2022, the Election Commission barred him from holding elected office for one term over the Toshakhana case. The following month, he survived an assassination attempt. In May 2023, he was arrested in the Al-Qadir Trust case, triggering the May 9 riots; although the Supreme Court later declared his arrest unlawful due to violation of judicial sanctity, he was arrested again in August. In January 2025, he was sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment in the Al-Qadir Trust case, followed in December by a further 17-year sentence and a fine in the Toshakhana-II case. He has alleged that his imprisonment is politically motivated, a claim denied by the Shehbaz Sharif government and the post-2022 military establishment. He has been held in Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi since his arrest in 2023.
Khan was born in Lahore on 5 October 1952. He is the only son of Ikramullah Khan Niazi, a civil engineer, and his wife, Shaukat Khanum, and has four sisters. Paternally, he is of Pathan origin from the Niazi tribe. His maternal family is from the Burki community, having lived near Jalandhar for centuries before migrating to Pakistan after the partition of India in 1947. He attended Aitchison College and Cathedral School in Lahore. He moved to Royal Grammar School Worcester in England in September 1971, where he performed well in cricket. In 1972, after being turned down by Cambridge University, he was admitted to Keble College, Oxford, where he studied philosophy, politics and economics, graduating in 1975. Paul Hayes, a cricket enthusiast, helped facilitate his entry to Oxford.
Khan had several relationships during his bachelorhood. His first girlfriend, Emma Sergeant, an artist and daughter of British investor Sir Patrick Sergeant, began a relationship with him in 1982. They visited Pakistan together, including during a hunting trip to Peshawar and a cricket tour to Australia. Sergeant also painted his portrait during their relationship at his request. Khan's Chelsea residence, near Sergeant's studio and Tramp, became a focus of his social life during this period. The relationship ended in 1986 after periods of separation. Ana-Luisa White, daughter of British industrialist Gordon White and later known as Sita, began a relationship with Khan in 1986, shortly after his relationship with Sergeant ended. The relationship lasted two years. White later became pregnant after an encounter in 1991 and gave birth to a daughter, Tyrian Jade, in June 1992. She subsequently claimed that Khan was the father. In 1997, a California court ruled that Khan was Tyrian's father after White filed a paternity suit. The ruling followed his failure to respond to the suit or a request for a blood test. Khan denied paternity and said he would take a paternity test in Pakistan and accept the decision of the Pakistani courts. After White's death in 2004, Jemima, Khan's wife and a friend of White, was named Tyrian's legal guardian in White's will. Khan said Tyrian could join their family in London, leaving the decision to Jemima because of her relationship with his and Jemima's sons. In August 1992, Khan began dating Kristiane Backer, a German MTV host. Their relationship lasted nearly three years, during which Khan introduced her to Islam. Khan and Jemima Goldsmith confirmed their engagement on 12 May 1995. They married in a brief Islamic Nikah ceremony in Paris on 16 May, followed by a civil ceremony at the Richmond register office on 21 June before moving to Lahore. Khan said Jemima converted to Islam "through her own convictions" after studying the religion. They have two sons, Sulaiman Isa and Kasim. On 22 June 2004, the couple divorced after nine years of marriage, with the divorce attributed to difficulties Jemima experienced adapting to life in Pakistan. On 8 January 2015, Khan married British-Pakistani journalist Reham Khan in a private Nikah ceremony at his Islamabad residence. They announced their divorce on 22 October 2015. In 2016, media reports speculated about a possible third marriage involving Khan and his spiritual guide Bushra Bibi. Khan dismissed the reports as "absolutely baseless", while members of the Manika family also denied the rumour. Khan criticised the media for spreading the reports, and PTI filed a complaint against the channels involved. In 2017, PTI member Ayesha Gulalai alleged that Khan, then the party chairman, had sexually harassed her. Gulalai said he had sent her "inappropriate text messages", with the first allegedly sent in October 2013. Khan said he had not sent "indecent messages" to Gulalai and supported Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi's proposal for a special committee to investigate the allegations. He later opposed the proposed committee's composition, calling for an independent panel to assess the allegations first. Khan and his party filed a defamation suit against Gulalai. No inquiry was ultimately conducted and Gulalai did not publicly release the alleged messages. On 7 January 2018, the PTI central secretariat said Khan had proposed marriage to Bushra, but that she had not yet accepted. On 18 February, PTI confirmed that Khan had married Bushra Bibi. The mufti who conducted the marriage later testified that the nikah had been performed twice. He said the first ceremony, on 1 January 2018, took place while Bushra was still in iddat, and alleged that he had believed the marriage would help Khan become prime minister.
Khan made his first-class debut at 16 in Lahore. In the early 1970s, he played for several Lahore-based teams, including Lahore A, Lahore B, Lahore Greens and Lahore. He played for the Oxford University cricket team from 1973 to 1975, earning a Blue. Between 1971 and 1976, Khan played English county cricket for Worcestershire, and also represented Dawood Industries and Pakistan International Airlines. From 1983 to 1988, he played for Sussex. Khan made his Test cricket debut against England in June 1971 at Edgbaston. In August 1974, he played his first One Day International (ODI), against England at Trent Bridge in the Prudential Trophy. He received the Wetherell Award for leading all-rounder in English first-class cricket in 1976 and 1980. By 1977, he was playing in Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket.
As a bowler, Khan learned reverse swing from Sarfraz Nawaz and later taught it to Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis. From January 1980 to 1988, he took 236 Test wickets at an average of 17.77, including 18 five-wicket hauls and five 10-wicket hauls. His figures compared favourably with those of Richard Hadlee, Malcolm Marshall, Dennis Lillee, Joel Garner and Michael Holding in both average and strike rate. He was the leading Test wicket-taker in 1982. He recorded his best Test figures, taking 8 wickets for 58 runs against Sri Lanka in 1981–82.
In 1982, Khan became captain of the Pakistan national cricket team. Under his captaincy, Pakistan won their first Test in England in 28 years at Lord's in 1982. In 1983, he was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year. During Pakistan's 1982–83 series against India, he took 40 wickets at an average of 13.95. In January 1983, he became the second cricketer, after Ian Botham, to score a century and take 10 wickets in a Test. The following month, he reached a Test bowling rating of 922, the highest International Cricket Council (ICC) rating since World War I, and third-highest in all-time ICC Test bowling. He became the first Pakistani bowler to take 200 Test wickets. The series caused a stress fracture in his left shin, sidelining him for more than two years. Initially, he was able to bat but not bowl, before the injury eventually prevented him from playing altogether. An experimental treatment in London, funded by the Pakistani government, helped him recover by late 1984. He returned under Javed Miandad's captaincy in the 1984–85 home series against Sri Lanka. Miandad subsequently stepped down as captain, citing limited co-operation from Khan, who was then reappointed captain. Khan initiated reforms in cricket umpiring to reduce criticism of Pakistani officials in home series. In 1986, he invited Indian umpires VK Ramaswamy and Piloo Reporter to officiate a Test against West Indies. He subsequently brought England's John Hampshire and John Holder to officiate in the home series against India in 1989–90. The initiatives contributed to the introduction of a rule in 1994 requiring one neutral umpire and a 2002 rule requiring both umpires to be independent. In 1987, Khan led Pakistan to its first Test series win in India, followed by its first series victory in England the same year. He retired from international cricket after the 1987 Cricket World Cup, but returned at the request of General Zia-ul-Haq and resumed the captaincy. In 1988, he led Pakistan on a successful West Indies tour, where he was named Man of the Series after taking 23 wickets in three Tests. He became the first Asian and eighth non-Australian to win the International Cricketer of the Year in 1989. As captain, he led Pakistan in 48 Tests (14 wins, 8 losses, 26 draws) and 139 ODIs (75 wins, 59 losses, 1 tie). In Tests, he holds the record for most wickets as captain, second-best innings figures (8/60), most five-wicket hauls in an innings (12), and most ten-wicket match hauls (4).
