KARACHI: Declassified emails in the latest release of Epstein files have shed light on a 2013 diplomatic effort to leverage the influence of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder Imran Khan, years before he became prime minister of Pakistan.
The description appears in a June 2013 email from Nasra Hassan, a former UN official, to Terje Rod-Larsen, a Norwegian diplomat and then president of the International Peace Institute.
Hassan described Khan as a London society lion while discussing how Western-backed health initiatives could gain influence in Pakistan.
The correspondence is among documents released by the US Department of Justice on Friday as part of its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein s financial and professional network.
At the time, Khan was an opposition politician and former international cricket star, widely known in Western capitals for his social connections rather than for holding public office. Hassan advised that those connections made him a more effective interlocutor than Pakistan s newly appointed prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, for sensitive diplomacy related to polio eradication.
I think that maybe something similar was planned vis-a-vis Pakistan, but not via the new prime minister [PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif had assumed power then] but Imran Khan, Hassan wrote, according to the email.
Khan s PTI had just taken control of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where polio remained endemic and vaccination campaigns faced resistance.
The email followed discussions involving Bill Gates, identified as BG in the correspondence, and Afghanistan s then president, Hamid Karzai.
