Imran Khan deemed 'medically fit' after court-ordered hospital exam, returned to jail

Imran Khan walked out of a hospital in Islamabad on Friday morning and straight back into a prison cell. Doctors had examined him overnight—an ophthalmologist, a cardiologist, a physician—and declared him medically fit. The former Prime Minister, now 73, was returned to detention after the evaluation, which the Pakistani government said proved he was well enough to remain incarcerated.

The hospital visit itself was the result of judicial pressure. Three days earlier, on Tuesday, Pakistan's Supreme Court had ordered that Khan be taken to a specific private hospital within 48 hours for medical evaluation. His legal team had been raising alarms about his health for months: severe vision loss in one eye, cardiac concerns, lack of access to specialist care. The court, in its order, acknowledged "the constitutional and legal obligation... to safeguard the life, health, dignity and security of the prisoner." It also mandated something Khan had been denied for months—a visit from his family.

But the execution of the court order became tangled in the same political tensions that have defined Khan's imprisonment since August 2023. The Supreme Court had specified that Khan be taken to Shifa International Hospital, a private facility in Islamabad. Security forces sealed off the area with barriers and armoured vehicles. Police cars patrolled. Outside, supporters of Khan's PTI party had gathered along the route despite warnings from both the court and party leadership to stay away. A senior police official later told the BBC that the heavy security presence at Shifa was a decoy—Khan had never been taken there at all.

Instead, he was driven to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, a government-run hospital. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar explained the switch: the "security situation created by PTI workers" had forced the change. The move immediately drew scrutiny. Sheikh Waqas Akram, the PTI's Information Secretary, asked pointedly whether the court order had been "implemented in its true spirit, or was it merely a superficial exercise for propaganda?" The question hung in the air unanswered.

What did happen during the overnight examination was that Khan saw his sister Dr. Uzma Khan for the first time in months. She accompanied him through all stages of the medical evaluation. His other sister, Noreen Khan, had visited him in prison on Tuesday night after the court order. These brief family contacts were themselves significant—Khan had been isolated from relatives for an extended period, part of the broader conditions of his detention.

Khan's legal team has maintained that he suffers from multiple untreated conditions. In February, his lawyer stated that Khan had only 15 percent vision remaining in his right eye because prison authorities had failed to provide proper care—a claim the government disputed. The Supreme Court's order specifically mandated that an eye specialist be involved in his treatment, suggesting the judges took the vision loss seriously enough to name it explicitly.

The 73-year-old former cricket captain and Prime Minister has been held on corruption charges since August 2023—charges he and his supporters characterize as politically motivated persecution. He and his wife Bushra Bibi were both sentenced to 17 years in late 2024. Khan has faced accusations in more than 100 cases, ranging from leaking state secrets to selling state gifts. He led Pakistan from 2018 to 2022 and remains a polarizing figure with a substantial base of supporters who have staged large-scale protests against his detention, protests that authorities have met with force.

The hospital examination, then, was neither a vindication nor a reprieve. It was a moment of judicial intervention in an ongoing detention that Khan's supporters see as politically driven and his government sees as legally justified. The doctors found him fit to remain in prison. The court order was followed, though not quite as written. And Khan returned to his cell, his health evaluated but his freedom unchanged.