The prestigious University of Oxford in Britain announced on Wednesday that 38 candidates are competing for the position of chancellor, but imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan is not one of them.
The candidates are competing to succeed Chris Patten, the former governor of Hong Kong who resigned in June after 21 years in office. Since 1224, the ceremonial post has been occupied continuously.
William Hague, a former leader and foreign secretary of the Conservative Party, Peter Mandelson, a former EU trade commissioner for the Labour Party, and Dominic Grieve, a former attorney general, are among the notable candidates to succeed him.
Scottish lawyer Elish Angiolini, who led a high-profile investigation into the 2021 rape, abduction, and murder of 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah Everard by a London police officer, hopes to become the first woman to hold the position in 800 years.
St. Hugh’s College in Oxford, where former UK prime minister Theresa May and Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi both attended, is currently led by Angiolini.
Another Oxford head — Jan Royall, of Somerville School — is likewise in the running. She was a leader of the House of Lords and served as an adviser to the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock.
The former premier had “given instructions that he would like to submit his application,” according to a London-based PTI spokesperson in August.
Imran, state leader from 2018 to 2022, has spent over one year in jail on different charges from debasement to prompting brutality, which he says are politically persuaded and intended to keep him from power.
After completing courses in philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford in 1975, he went on to have a stellar cricket career as Pakistan’s captain before entering politics.
On Tuesday, PTI Executive Lawyer Gohar shared Imran’s clinical report from the Pakistan Foundation of Clinical Science (Pims) that pronounced him “fit and solid”. Jemima Goldsmith, his former spouse, had demanded his release and expressed concern about how he was being treated in prison.
The college said applications were thought of as on its “four rejection rules”, which preclude candidates considered not to be a “fit and legitimate individual” by the UK charge authority.
Syed Zulfi Bukhari, Imran’s adviser on international media, called the development “extremely unfortunate.”
He went on to say: My attorneys have written to the university to inquire about the reasons for this. Prior to his application, we had received opinions from a number of lawyers and barristers. Oxford University will no longer be seen as a global leader in its field as a result of this.
Bukhari hoped everything would turn out great for different applicants of karma for the challenge ahead.
