Imran Khan

Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi (, ; born 5 October 1952) is a Pakistani politician and former cricketer who served as the 22nd prime minister of Pakistan from August 2018 until April 2022.

Khan was born in Lahore on 5 October 1952.

Earlier, some reports suggest he was born on 25 November 1952.

It was reported that 5 October was wrongly mentioned by Pakistan Cricket Board officials on his passport.

He is the only son of Ikramullah Khan Niazi, a civil engineer, and his wife Shaukat Khanum, and has four sisters.

He began his international cricket career in a 1971 Test series against England.

In 1972, he enrolled in Keble College, Oxford where he studied philosophy, politics and economics, graduating in 1975.

An enthusiast for college cricket at Keble, Paul Hayes, was instrumental in securing the admission of Khan, after he had been turned down by Cambridge.

Khan had numerous relationships during his bachelor life.

He was then known as a hedonistic bachelor and a playboy who was active on the London nightclub circuit.

He was the captain of the Pakistan national cricket team throughout the 1980s and early 90s.

Born in Lahore, Khan graduated from Keble College, Oxford.

Khan played until 1992, served as the team's captain intermittently between 1982 and 1992, and won the 1992 Cricket World Cup, Pakistan's only victory in the competition.

Considered one of cricket's greatest all-rounders, Khan was later inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

He is the founder and former chairman of the political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) from 1996 to 2023.

Founding the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in 1996, Khan won a seat in the National Assembly in the 2002 general election, serving as an opposition member from Mianwali until 2007.

PTI boycotted the 2008 general election and became the second-largest party by popular vote in the 2013 general election.

Long settled in Mianwali in northwestern Punjab, his paternal family are of Pashtun descent and belong to the Niazi tribe, and one of his ancestors, Haibat Khan Niazi, in the 16th century, "was one of Sher Shah Suri's leading generals, as well as being the governor of Punjab."

Khan's maternal family has produced a number of cricketers, including those who have represented Pakistan, such as his cousins Javed Burki and Majid Khan.

Maternally, Khan is also a descendant of the Sufi warrior-poet and inventor of the Pashto alphabet, Pir Roshan, who hailed from his maternal family's ancestral Kaniguram town located in South Waziristan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

His maternal family was based in Basti Danishmanda, Jalandhar in Punjab, India for about 600 years, and migrated to Lahore after the independence of Pakistan.

A quiet and shy boy in his youth, Khan grew up with his sisters in relatively affluent, upper middle-class circumstances and received a privileged education.

He was educated at the Aitchison College and Cathedral School in Lahore, and then the Royal Grammar School Worcester in England, where he excelled at cricket.

In the 2018 general election, running on a populist platform, PTI became the largest party in the National Assembly, and formed a coalition government with independents with Khan as prime minister.

As prime minister, Khan addressed a balance of payments crisis with bailouts from the IMF.

He presided over a shrinking current account deficit, and limited defence spending to curtail the fiscal deficit, leading to some general economic growth.

He enacted policies that increased tax collection and investment.

His government committed to a renewable energy transition, launched Ehsaas Programme and the Plant for Pakistan initiative, and expanded the protected areas of Pakistan.

He presided over the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused economic turmoil and rising inflation in the country, threatening his political position.

In early 2022, in what became known as Lettergate, Khan alleged that the United States encouraged his removal from office.

In April, during the ensuing constitutional crisis, Khan became the first Pakistani prime minister to be removed from office through a no-confidence motion.

In August, he was charged under anti-terror laws after accusing the police and judiciary of detaining and torturing an aide.

In October, Khan was disqualified by the Election Commission of Pakistan from taking office for the current term of the National Assembly of Pakistan, regarding the Toshakhana reference case.

In November, he survived an assassination attempt during a political rally in Wazirabad, Punjab.

On 9 May 2023, Khan was arrested on corruption charges at the Islamabad High Court by paramilitary troops who smashed their way into the courthouse.

Protests broke out throughout Pakistan, resulting in the arrests of thousands of Khan's supporters along with military installations being ransacked.

After his release, he blamed the Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir for his arrest.

He was sentenced to a three-year jail term on 5 August 2023 after being found guilty of misusing his premiership to buy and sell gifts in state possession that were received during diplomatic visits abroad.

On 29 August 2023, a Pakistani appeals court suspended Khan's three-year prison term and granted him bail, but he remained incarcerated in connection with the Lettergate diplomatic cypher, for which he was accused of leaking state secrets and violating the Official Secrets Act.

On 30 January 2024, a special court sentenced Khan to 10 years in prison after finding him guilty of those charges.