Fears were growing on Thursday that former society girl Jemima Khan may have been targeted by Islamic extremists or an obsessed stalker, after it was revealed that the balaclava-clad knifeman who entered the family’s home on Tuesday morning had a key.
As the family bodyguard confronted the man downstairs, the wife of former cricketer Imran Khan, who is now a leading politician in his native Pakistan, barricaded herself in a bedroom with her two children Kasia, three, and Sulaimah, five. After the bodyguard set off the alarm using a portable panic button the attacker fled, stopping only to collect the film from a security camera that had tracked his movements.
The bodyguard was slashed with a sharp weapon that tore his clothing and slightly injured his hand, but was otherwise uninjured.
Jemima, 28, later told friends she was convinced the raid was not the work of an opportunist because he seemed to know his way around her home “intimately”. The fact the intruder had a key to her £1.5 million mews house in Fulham, south-west London, prompted fears that this was a well-planned operation.
Imran Khan is in Pakistan on the election trail with the Movement For Justice party he helped found six years ago. A spokesman said he had phoned his wife but had no plans to return to the UK. “She is fine but a bit shaken. Everyone is,” the spokesman added. “Imran has spoken to her and is reassured that everything is okay.”
Jemima looked pale and drawn as she drove away from the mews house on Wednesday. She refused to comment on the incident, but friends believe she is a “soft target for Islamic extremist groups”.
“She could easily have been the victim of rape designed to intimidate her husband and his supporters,” said a family friend. “Thank goodness the guard was there, otherwise I dread to think what could have happened.”
Photo: © Alphapress.com
