Video of Mexican drug lord's prison escape misrepresented as Imran Khan in jail
- Published on July 15, 2026 at 06:26
- 3 min read
- By Ayesha MIRZA, AFP Pakistan
The sister of Pakistan's former prime minister Imran Khan has challenged the conditions of his detention, describing it as "unlawful and inhumane", but footage shared on social media purportedly showing him in his jail cell is more than a decade old. The clip in fact shows footage released by the Mexican government in July 2015, showing how drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman escaped his cell at a maximum security prison.
"Those who gained power and privileges by seeking votes in Imran Khan's name are today enjoying comfort in air-conditioned rooms, while he -- despite being ill -- has been kept in a cramped dark prison cell in extreme heat deprived of basic facilities and electricity," says part of the Urdu-language caption of a Facebook video posted on July 9, 2026.
The video, which was shared by the official account of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party's central Punjab chapter, appears to show surveillance footage of a prison cell. A man in the cell is seen pacing back and forth, occasionally bending down behind a partition wall and returning to sit on a bed.
"Time is recording everyone's actions. On one side is comfort and luxury, on the other is the price of standing firm on one's principles," reads the rest of the caption.
The video was also shared in similar Facebook and X posts.
It circulated after Khan's sister Aleema challenged his alleged solitary confinement before the Islamabad High Court, with Pakistani news outlet Dawn reporting her petition described his detention conditions as unlawful and inhumane (archived link).
"According to the petition, during a lawyers’ meeting held on April 8, it emerged that Imran had been kept in solitary confinement for 22 hours a day, while his wife, Bushra Bibi, was allegedly confined in isolation for 24 hours a day," the report said, adding that Aleema had also claimed the couple have been denied family visits for months and that the former prime minister's eyesight had significantly deteriorated.
Khan has been jailed since 2023, and was sentenced in December 2025 along with his wife to 17 years on corruption charges they both deny (archived link).
The circulating video, however, does not show footage from Khan's jail cell. Pakistani authorities have not released any footage from the Adiala jail where Khan has been detained.
Prison break
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to similar footage distributed by AFP in July 2015.
Its description says it shows video released by the Mexican government that shows the-then fugitive drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman going into his prison cell's shower before disappearing.
Mexican authorities said Guzman, kingpin of the infamous Sinaloa drug cartel, escaped prison late on July 11, 2015 through a lengthy tunnel underneath his shower at the Altiplano maximum-security prison, some 90 kilometres (55 miles) west of Mexico City (archived link).
The escape -- his second jail break -- was an embarrassing blow to the Mexican government.
The falsely shared video appears to be a cropped and magnified version of the footage released by Mexican authorities, which was also used in other media reports at the time (archived here and here).
Guzman was recaptured six months after his escape and was extradited in 2017 to the United States, where he is serving a life sentence at a maximum security facility in Colorado on multiple charges including drug trafficking and money laundering (archived link).
AFP has previously debunked other misinformation about Khan that relies on misrepresented visuals.
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