Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan has lost 85% of the sight in his right eye, his lawyer told the Supreme Court, an ordeal that adds to the legal and political challenges he already faces.
Khan, 73, has been in prison since August 2023 and is serving a 14-year sentence on corruption charges, one of dozens of cases he says were concocted by the military to keep him out of politics, which the military denies.
“He has only 15% vision left in his right eye,” Khan’s lawyer Salman Safdar said in a report seen by Reuters on Thursday, citing the former cricket star-turned-politician.
The investigative report quoted Khan as saying that he had complained of “persistent blurred and foggy vision” since October 2025, but that no action had been taken by prison authorities.
Safdar submitted his report after a two-hour meeting with Khan ordered by the Supreme Court, which set a February 16 deadline for authorities to allow Khan access to his personal doctor for a report on his condition.
Visibly upset and desperate, KHAN HAS WATERY EYES
He said he noticed that Khan looked “visibly upset and deeply distressed by the loss of his sight”, adding that his “eyes were watery and he repeatedly wiped them with tissue paper”.
Khan was taken to hospital for a 20-minute eye procedure, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said earlier this month.
According to a medical report submitted to the court on February 6, based on an examination by an ophthalmologist in his prison cell in the city of Rawalpindi, he was diagnosed with right central retinal vein occlusion, or blockage.
Accordingly, Khan was taken to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad, where doctors, with his consent, performed a 20-minute procedure in the operating room.
Pakistan’s Parliamentary Affairs Minister Tariq Fazal said on Friday that reports that Khan had been complaining about his eyesight since October were false and that all authorities were informed about it only on January 16. Specialist ophthalmologists performed the procedure on January 24, he added.
“It is not a political issue. It is a medical issue. We will provide all possible support for his health,” Fazal told reporters in Islamabad.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party said in a statement that the party demanded unrestricted access to qualified specialists of Khan’s choice and an end to tactics that risked his life in custody.
The party, which faced a crackdown after Khan’s arrest in May 2023 sparked nationwide protests against the military, emerged as the single largest in the 2024 elections.
But she said the rigging robbed her of more seats to help other parties form a coalition government under Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, which Sharif and his allies reject.