Chuck Schumer Privately Warns Pakistan: Don't Kill Imran Khan in Prison

Imran Khan is currently incarcerated on corruption charges that are widely seen as politically motivated. Khan, who is regarded as the most popular politician in Pakistan, was removed from power in an April 2022 no-confidence vote orchestrated by the country’s powerful military establishment and encouraged by the U.S. Since then, Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, has faced a brutal repression that has raised international alarms and been denounced by human rights groups.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned in a conversation with Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington that the safety of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan was a high priority of the United States, multiple sources familiar with the exchange told The Intercept.

Foreign policy experts in Washington said the Biden administration’s approach risked transgressing democratic principles in the name of security. Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, said, “This appears to be an example where the administration is allowing its security relationship with a foreign government to crowd out other critical concerns like democratic backsliding and human rights.”

“There is undeniable evidence, which the State Department agrees with, that there were problems with this election,” Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, told The Intercept in March. At the time, Casar and other members of Congress had just called on President Joe Biden to withhold recognition of the government, but Washington’s ambassador to Pakistan congratulated Sharif in early March.