On Monday, a British court convicted Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Imran Ahmad Khan guilty of sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy at a party in 2008 after forcing him to drink gin. Khan is an MP from the Wakefield constituency.
Imran Khan was found guilty of assaulting the youngster at a party in Staffordshire in January 2008, 11 years before he became an MP, by a jury at Southwark Crown Court in London. Mr Justice Baker, the judge, stated that he will sentence Khan at a later date.
According to United Kingdom law, if he obtains a term of more than 12 months, he will be immediately barred from serving as an MP. Khan did not say anything as he walked out of court, but a member of his legal team indicated he will appeal.
When he reported the complaint to the Conservative Party press office in December 2019, the victim said he was not “taken very seriously.” In court, he stated that when Khan did “slow caressing” to his legs, he felt “scared, vulnerable, and numb.” Khan, on the other hand, claimed that he only stroked the adolescent’s elbow when he became irritated during a discussion about his “confused sexuality.”
According to the court, Khan fed the child with gin and tonic before taking him upstairs to see pornography and assaulting him on a bunk bed. The incident was reported to the police by the child. The 15-year-old did not want to take the complaint further, therefore it was dismissed at the time. However, the complainant returned to the police after learning Imran Khan was standing for MP in the 2019 general election.
Khan attempted and failed to prohibit press coverage of the case, claiming that if the case against him became public, his life would be jeopardised. He said that as an Ahmadi Muslim, using alcohol and homosexuality are severely forbidden within his faith and that reporting on those topics would subject him to “a risk to his safety both here and abroad.”
Khan was expelled from the Conservative Party in June 2021 after being charged with sexual assault, and he has since sat as an independent.
The jury also heard testimony from a man who said Khan sexually assaulted him in his sleep during a party in Pakistan where they consumed marijuana and drank alcohol. The man, who was in his early twenties at the time, told the jury Khan gave him sleeping drugs as they shared a room in a Peshawar hotel. The victim said that when he woke up, Khan was performing a sex act on him after taking down his boxer shorts.
He told the court that he reported the event to the British High Commission and the Foreign Office, but said he did not want to go to the Pakistani police because of Khan’s strong links in the military and politics. After knowing Khan had been charged with sexual assault, he stepped forward as a witness.
