Imran Khan is the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, deposed and subsequently imprisoned. He continues, per John Kiriakou’s November 2025 account, to direct the affairs of his political party — the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf — from prison.[1]
The 2025 apology demand
In approximately early November 2025 Kiriakou gave an interview to an Indian news outlet in which he observed that “in a conventional conflict India would beat Pakistan because it has five times the people.” The remark — which Kiriakou characterizes as “I didn’t say anything that I haven’t said a thousand times” — produced a quantity of Pakistani death threats sufficient that his attorney advised him to keep a low profile, and a formal letter from the president of Imran Khan’s PTI party condemning the statement “in the strongest possible terms” and demanding an immediate apology to “his excellency the former prime minister,” to the party, and to the people of Pakistan.[2][3][4]
Kiriakou’s response — sent via email and self-reported in the same Julian Dorey appearance:
In regards to your demand for an apology, I wiped my ass with your demands for an apology.[5]
As a consequence Kiriakou has discontinued a previously scheduled speaking engagement at the Pakistani military academy. “I’ll never go back ever again. … But they don’t treat me with respect anyway.”[5]
2022 dissolution of parliament
Discussing Khan’s April 2022 dissolution of Pakistan’s parliament, Kiriakou noted that the Pakistani Supreme Court had ruled that same day that the dissolution was illegal and reversed it, with a recall vote expected the next day and Khan headed for removal from office.[6] He described Khan as arguably the greatest cricket player the world has ever produced — “the Babe Ruth of cricket” — who had been married to Jemima Goldsmith, a minor member of the British royal family who converted to Islam for him, and who used his own money to build children’s hospitals in Pakistan, generating a level of public adoration bordering on prostration.[7] Kiriakou predicted Khan would lose power despite being, in his assessment, as good a prime minister as Pakistan is likely to get and not personally corrupt, since as the country’s richest man he had no need for the money.[8]