Imran Khan, the 19th Prime Minister of Pakistan and former captain of the Pakistani cricket team, belonged to a prominent family in Pakistan. His family was of Niazi and Burki origin, with Pashtun ancestry. His family had actively contributed to sports, politics, and the Pakistani armed forces. His father, Ikramullah Khan Niazi, was a civil engineer, while his mother, Shaukat Khanum, was a housewife and the daughter of a prominent civil servant. Imran has two children from his first wife, Jemima Goldsmith.
Imran Khan’s children
Sulaiman Isa Khan
Khan’s eldest son, Sulaiman Isa, was born in November 1996 at the Portland Hospital in London. In 2016, Sulaiman led the electoral campaign in the youth wing of his maternal uncle Zac Goldsmith for the 2016 London mayoral election.
Kasim Khan
Imran’s second son with Jemima, named Kasim, was born on 10 April 1999 in England. In the recent past, Richard Grenell, former US President Donald Trump’s envoy for special missions, on Tuesday (local time) met the sons of jailed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan in California and raised a call for the Pakistani prime minister’s release, terming his arrest a case of political persecution.
Grenell posted a photo with Imran Khan’s elder son, Sulaiman Isa, and his second son, Kasim Khan, writing that he loved hanging out with them and welcoming them to California.
In a post on X, Grenell wrote: “Welcome to California, my friends. I loved hanging out with you today. Sulaiman and @Kasim_Khan_1999, you must stay strong. There are millions of people around the world who are sick of political prosecutions. You are not alone.”
This was not the first time that the former US Ambassador had supported Imran Khan. In an interview with Newsmax during Trump’s election campaign, Grenell stated that the US had “a much better relationship with Pakistan during the Trump administration when Khan was in office.”
“We had a much better relationship with Pakistan during the Trump administration when a guy named Imran Khan was the leader of Pakistan. That’s because Imran Khan was an outsider. He was a former cricket player and actually the captain of the Pakistani national cricket team. He wasn’t a politician, and he spoke in very common-sense language. He and Donald Trump had a very good relationship,” Grenell had said at that time.
At that time, PTI had raised concerns about how Khan was subjected to really inferior prison conditions. They had informed that Khan was held in a death cell with no access to books, television, or newspapers.
“Despite being a former prime minister, Khan was denied both his status and even the basic rights of an ordinary prisoner, which was a matter of grave concern, as he was the country’s most popular leader, and the entire nation was deeply worried about his well-being and safety,” Akram said, PTI spokesperson.
My father, former Prime Minister Imran Khan, has now spent over 700 days in prison – held in solitary confinement. He is denied access to his lawyers, not allowed visits from his family, fully cut off from us (his children), and even his personal doctor is refused entry. This is… pic.twitter.com/VL9OT2cIrY
— Kasim Khan (@Kasim_Khan_1999) July 7, 2025
Jemima on Imran’s solitary confinement
In the past, Jemima Goldsmith has also accused the government of denying their sons the right to speak to their father, who had been in prison for almost two years, and of threatening them that if they tried to meet him, they would be arrested as well. She had stated that these types of actions do not happen in a democracy. In a statement on X, she said:
Imran Khan’s Sons and Their Push for US Support Against His Detention in Isolation in Pakistan
In a statement shared on X, Goldsmith stated, “My children are not allowed to speak on the phone to their father @ImranKhanPTI. He has been in solitary confinement in prison for nearly 2 years. Pakistan’s government has now said if they go there to try to see him, they too will be arrested and put behind bars. This doesn’t happen in a democracy or a functioning state. This isn’t politics. It’s a personal vendetta.”
