No Soldier, Just AI: Fake "Attack" Fuels the Misinfo Wave on Imran Khan's 3rd Year in Jail - Fact Crescendo Sri Lanka English

Subscribe to our WhatsApp Channel

Imran Khan is a name Sri Lankan audiences know well, first as one of cricket’s greatest captains and later as Pakistan’s prime minister. So, when a short video began spreading across Sinhala social media feeds appearing to show a uniformed soldier striking the now-jailed former leader, it triggered immediate shock and anger. If true, the brutal treatment of a former head of government in custody would have been global news.

We investigated. Here is what we found.

Social Media Posts

The clip was circulated on Facebook and other platforms, presented as genuine footage of an assault on Imran Khan. Below is one of the posts as it appeared.

Below are some of the other instances of the same post.

Fact-Check

If a soldier had genuinely assaulted former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is currently imprisoned on corruption charges, it would have drawn intense international attention. Our investigation found that no international media outlet and no credible official source has confirmed or reported any assault on Imran Khan, either during his arrest or while in prison.

The Viral Video Was Generated Using Artificial Intelligence

There is no verified video or photograph of Imran Khan being assaulted in custody. We also found that several photographs and videos linked to him on social media had already been confirmed as AI-generated fabrications by international fact-checking organizations.

We ran the circulating footage through several AI-content detection tools. The results confirmed that the video had, in fact, been generated using artificial intelligence.

Protests Erupted Across Pakistan Marking Three Years of Imran Khan’s Imprisonment

Marking three years of Imran Khan’s imprisonment, his supporters staged large protests across major Pakistani cities. Leaders of the PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) party warned the government that nationwide protests would intensify unless the former prime minister was given proper medical care and allowed family visits, as reported by The Hindu and Amnesty International.

Imran Khan was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison in the Toshakhana corruption case on 5 August 2023 and was then transferred to Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi. He was later convicted in a string of further cases, including corruption charges and the unauthorized disclosure of state secrets, receiving sentences of 14 and 17 years respectively, alongside his wife Bushra Bibi. On current terms he is set to remain imprisoned until 2040.

His camp has alleged severe isolation throughout the imprisonment, with his lawyers recently stating that vision in his right eye had deteriorated by 85% due to a medical condition. While a number of false and alarming rumors about his detention spread through social media and some reports, the Pakistani government firmly denied them and insisted he remained in good health, as covered by The Observer and The Economic Times.

Also read: A String of False Posts Claiming Imran Khan Had Died in Custody.

Join Us

Join us to learn more about our fact-check investigations.

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Google News | TikTok

Conclusion

Our fact-check found that the video circulating online, said to show a soldier assaulting former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, is AI-generated. Multiple AI-content detection tools confirmed the footage was synthetic, and there is no verified video or photograph of any such assault.

No credible official source or international media outlet has reported that Imran Khan was attacked by a soldier, whether during his arrest or in prison. Reporting by The Hindu, Amnesty International, The Observer and The Economic Times places the real story in context: protests over his detention conditions and his health, not an assault. The claim is therefore False.