KARACHI: Jemima Goldsmith, the former wife of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, warned that she would file a defamation suit against Mr Khan’s ex-wife Reham Khan if her “libellous” book was published in the United Kingdom.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Ms Goldsmith said: “On Khan’s book I’ve been assured that it’s too libellous to be published in the UK but if it is published here, I will be suing for defamation & breach of privacy on behalf of my (then) 16 yr old son & in relation to the moronic, re-hashed Zionist conspiracy theories. Sigh.”

Ms Goldsmith married the PTI chief in 1995 and they parted ways in 2004 but have remained on good terms.

Reham Khan’s unpublished manuscript has become a source of controversy in the country after actor Hamza Ali Abbasi claimed to have the tell-all book and accused her of being on a “Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz agenda”.

The accusation was followed by a Twitter spat between the two, in which Ms Khan claimed that Mr Abbasi has been threatening her since 2017. Ms Khan has sent him a legal notice for spreading false information.

On Tuesday, the party’s spokesman Fawad Chaudhry claimed that the contents of the book were “pornographic” and against “family values”.

Meanwhile, Mr Khan’s friend and businessman Syed Zulfiqar Bukhari, the party’s foreign media head Anila Khawaja, former Pakistan cricket team caption Wasim Akram and Ms Khan’s ex-husband have also sent legal notices to her for maligning them in her unpublished book.

Ms Khan, on the other hand, has refused to confirm or deny the contents of her book.

‘Mr U-Turn’

In an interview with Indian TV channel CNN News18, Ms Khan claimed that her ex-husband would hand the country over to extremists if he won the elections.

She claimed that the book discussed what the voters must know before they decided to vote for him. Referring to her ex as Mr U-turn, she said that Mr Khan warming up to the military reeked of political opportunism and everyone, from his opponents to his backers and New Delhi, should be wary of him.

The tell-all book, she said, also revealed instances of sexual coercion or favours, including some that directly related to Mr Khan. She added that sexual favours had been used to give out powerful positions.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2018