AI-altered Sky News interview with Imran Khan's sister misleads widely online
- Published on December 31, 2025 at 07:35
- 3 min read
- By Sachin BAGHEL, AFP India
Pakistan's jailed former leader Imran Khan has blamed the country's army chief Asif Munir for his incarceration, but a video circulating on social media of Khan's sister calling Munir a "radicalised Islamist" who "yearns for war with India" during a television interview has been altered with AI. British broadcaster Sky News' anchor Yalda Hakim called the circulating clip a deepfake that was "deeply disturbing". The original interview shows Aleema Khan blaming Munir for her family's purported lack of access to Imran Khan, who has been jailed since 2023.
"In an interview with Sky News, Aleema Khan, sister of ex-PM Imran Khan, alleged Army Chief Asim Munir engineered the May conflict with India to bolster his Islamic identity, and claimed the selective targeting of Hindus in Pahalgam was part of his plan", reads a Hindi-language X post shared on December 3, 2025.
The accompanying clip appears to show a journalist asking Aleema Khan about her views on the India-Pakistan conflict in May 2025, which saw the nuclear-abled South Asian neighbours on the brink of an all-out war.
Khan describes Munir as a "radicalised Islamist" and an "Islamic conservative figure" who "yearns for a war with India".
She goes on to call Imran Khan a liberal leader, highlighting his supposed ties with India's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and urging Western nations to work for his release.
Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in 2022 and has since been jailed on a slew of corruption charges that he denies.
His supporters say he is being denied prison visits from lawyers and family after a fiery social media post accusing Munir of persecuting him (archived link).
Rumors of Khan's death sparked a furious outcry from supporters of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf party on November 26 as they gathered outside Rawalpindi's Adiala jail, where he has been incarcerated for more than two years (archived link).
His sister Uzma Khan later confirmed he is "alive and well" after finally being allowed to meet him on December 3, 2025 (archived link).
The clip was shared with similar claims elsewhere on X and Instagram posts.
But the video was doctored and the original interview did not show Aleema referring to Munir as an "Islamist" or blaming him for the India-Pakistan conflict in May.
'Deepfake'
A reverse image search on Google found the original interview uploaded on Sky News' official YouTube channel on December 3, 2025 (archived link).
Interviewer Yalda Hakim asks Khan about "justification given by authorities for preventing him from seeing anyone", which led to speculations of his death.
In her response, Khan quotes her other sister, who was allowed to meet the former prime minister in jail, saying Imran Khan held "Asim Munir solely responsible for what's happening".
"I hold him responsible for what’s being done to me because it is against all regulations," Khan said, quoting Imran Khan.
At no point during the interview does Khan say anything about India-Pakistan war or Munir's role in it.
AFP reached out to Aleema Khan but received no response.
This clip is part of a longer episode of the show "The World with Yalda Hakim" (archived link).
In a separate report on December 4, Sky News said Hakim had been targeted with a "deepfake" video, which the journalist also reiterated in an X post (archived here and here).
Hakim also calls the clip "deeply disturbing" in the subsequent Sky News report.
An analysis using Hiya, an AI Voice detection tool, also indicates a 98 percent likelihood that the audio was AI-generated.
AFP has previously debunked other misinformation related to Imran Khan.
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