Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan has applied to become the next chancellor of Britain’s prestigious University of Oxford, his party said.

Khan, prime minister from 2018 to 2022, has just marked one year in prison on various charges from corruption to inciting violence that he said are politically motivated and designed to keep him from power.

“Imran Khan had given instructions that he would like to submit his application and now the application scrutiny will take place,” Sayed Zulfikar Bukhari, the London-based spokesman for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, told AFP.

“It’s a ceremonial post but one with utmost prestige and importance and Imran Khan, being one of the larger or more popular names coming out of Oxford, it would be brilliant to see him as chancellor,” he said.

Conservative peer Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, announced in February he was stepping down as Oxford chancellor.

The list of candidates for the 10-year term will not be made public until October, according to the university’s website, with voting taking place at the end of the month.

Khan graduated from Oxford in 1975 after studying philosophy, politics, and economics.

He led a playboy lifestyle during his career as one of Pakistan’s greatest cricket players, regularly gracing the pages of Britain’s gossip magazines.

Married three times, including to British socialite and filmmaker Jemima Goldsmith, he later turned to philanthropy and politics.

He faced a backlash from women’s rights groups while prime minister for linking Pakistan’s high rates of sexual violence to the clothes that women wear.

Khan was ousted in 2022 and then launched a comeback campaign in which he criticised Pakistan’s powerful military, whose leading generals had once backed him, and drew massive crowds onto the nation’s streets.

“If he does become the chancellor, he would be the first of Asian descent. It wouldn’t be something only for Pakistan, but it would be a great achievement for all of Asia and the rest of the world,” Bukhari said.

Other prominent applicants and Oxford alumni include former foreign secretary William Hague and former EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson, according to British media reports.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Pakistan’s jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan and several top leaders of his party were directly involved in orchestrating the unprecedented anti-government violence on May 9, a joint investigation team has informed an anti-terrorism court in Lahore.

A Joint Investigation Team (JIT) was constituted to probe the violence in Punjab province following the arrest of Mr. Khan, the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party in connection with a corruption case on May 9.

The JIT headed by DIG Operations Imran Kishwar on Thursday submitted chargesheets against PTI leaders and hundreds of workers before an anti-terrorism court, reported the Dawn newspaper on Friday.

According to Lahore police, Khan, 70, and over 900 other party leaders and activists named in the May 9 cases have been “declared guilty of serious offences”, the report said.

In the chargesheets filed before the court, the prosecution alleged that the violent protests led by the suspects on May 9 were part of a planned conspiracy against the state.

It said over “400 pieces of video evidence, including speeches of the PTI chairman, proved that the attacks on military installations and premises in cantonment areas were pre-planned”.

A large number of PTI activists had attacked military installations, police vehicles, and other public and private properties in Lahore, according to the cases registered with the police. The vandalism at the Lahore Corps Commander’s House (Jinnah House), Askari Tower, and the Shadman police station were some of the major incidents during the violence.

“We have declared them prime accused in 12 out of the total 14 cases registered under the anti-terrorism act and other charges at Lahore’s various police stations… [and] challans have been submitted in the ATC,” the Dawn newspaper quoted DIG Kishwar as saying.

He said the JIT obtained “sufficient evidence” against the nominated persons, including Imran Khan, former Punjab governor Omar Sarfaraz Cheema, former provincial ministers Mian Mehmoodur Rashid, Dr Yasmin Rashid, and others.

The digital and photogrammetric evidence as well as voice messages of the suspects “confirmed the allegations” levelled against them in over a dozen cases lodged at different police stations in the provincial capital, the DIG said.

According to the JIT report, Khan along with the cooperation of central, provincial and local leaderships, constituted this plan to push Pakistan towards civil war and the public was incited through fake and self-created stories, reported The Express Tribune.

Following the arrest of Imran Khan by paramilitary Rangers on May 9, unrest broke out in Pakistan that saw the torching and vandalising of dozens of military and state buildings, including the Army headquarters in Rawalpindi and the ISI building in Faisalabad.

Police arrested over 10,000 workers of PTI and over 100 are being tried under the Army Act.

Mr. Khan has denied masterminding or inciting the attacks stating that it was a well-planned conspiracy to oust its party from upcoming elections.

He served as the country’s prime minister until April last year and currently faces around 180 cases, most of which stem from incidents on May 9.

Mr. Khan, who has been detained since August 5 after his arrest following his conviction in the Toshakhana case, is currently serving his sentence in the cipher case in Adiala jail.

The Islamabad High Court suspended his sentence in the Toshakhana case on August 29.