Tory party rocked by more sexual misconduct allegations amid claims MP sexually assaulted man in his sleep in Pakistan
A man was assaulted while asleep by a Tory MP who was visiting Pakistan, a court heard today.
The incident allegedly occured after a party where they were smoking marijuana and drinking whisky, a jury was told.
Imran Ahmad Khan, 48, who was elected as the Conservative MP for Wakefield in West Yorkshire in 2019, had been working on a project funded by the Foreign Office at the time of the alleged incident in November 2010.
The man, who was then in his early 20s, told a jury Khan offered him a sleeping pill as they shared a room in a guesthouse in Peshawar, a city in the west of Pakistan.
He said he later woke up to find Khan was performing a sex act on him, having pulled down his boxer shorts,.
“I pushed him off and told him to stop and said something along the lines of, ‘What the f*** are you doing?’”
Alleged victim
Khan is on trial at Southwark Crown Court, where he denies sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in a bunkbed at a house in Staffordshire in January 2008.
He allegedly forced the youngster to drink gin, dragged him upstairs and asked him to watch pornography before touching his feet and legs, coming within a “hair’s breadth” of his privates.
The MP, who is gay and a Muslim, claims he only touched the Catholic teenager’s elbow when he “became extremely upset” after a conversation about his confused sexuality.
Prosecutor Sean Larkin QC told jurors on Monday there was a different allegation against Khan, which is not part of the charge they are trying him on.
“It is a different incident involving an adult in Pakistan,” he said.
Reported to the Foreign Office
The alleged victim said he had reported the incident to the British High Commission and the Foreign Office but did not want to go to police in Pakistan because of Khan’s “powerful connections” in the military and government.
He came forward as a witness after hearing Khan had been charged with sexual assault, the court heard.
The man said that before the alleged incident: “There were definitely times when he got drunk after a few gin and tonics for example.”
He said Khan’s homosexuality was an “open secret” and the MP would sometimes act “quite flirtatiously” or “tickle” him.
Jurors heard that on the night of the alleged sexual assault Khan and the man had been at a party where everyone was drinking whisky.
Asked if he had been smoking marijuana, the witness said: “I think generally at these types of events, if it had of been there both Imran and I would have had some.”
Khan’s QC, Gudrun Young, suggested her client “did not like marijuana or the smell of it” but the man said: “He has definitely smoked in front of me in the past.”
He said: “Imran offered me a sleeping pill and we were staying in the same room, and for want of a good night’s sleep I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it.”
Ms Young suggested the man’s perception was affected by the alcohol, cannabis and sleeping pill and, that despite being heterosexual he had consented to sexual activity with Khan.
“I am not suggesting this incident did not happen, that Mr Khan did not give you oral sex. But I am suggesting that at the time at least that is something to which you were consenting,” she said.
“I was not consenting,” said the witness. “I was not gay and I have never experimented with being gay.”
The trial continues.