I’ve done an interview with the former Pakistani-cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan which you’ll be able to read in a forthcoming issue of the New Statesman.
However, I thought I’d share an excerpt from it (below). I asked Khan about the night he and his then wife, Jemima, shared a dinner in South Africa hosted by Nelson Mandela. The other high-profile guests included Naomi Campbell, Mia Farrow and the new president of Liberia, Charles Taylor — who is now standing trial for war crimes. (You can see the much-discussed photograph of that dinner and its gaggle of celebrity guests, including Imran and Jemima, here.)
Farrow’s claim that Taylor, after being struck by Campbell’s beauty on that September night in 1997, arranged for the supermodel to be given a so-called blood diamond, led to Campbell and Farrow having to testify at Taylor’s trial in The Hague in recent days. In fact, the story has dominated news bulletins across the world despite the horrific floods in Pakistan.
What was Khan’s memory of that now-notorious night? Did he see or hear about any diamonds? Khan told me:
I remember Naomi, of course. I remember Mia Farrow, Quincy Jones and I remember Nelson Mandela who invited us. But to be honest, I have no recollection of Charles Taylor or these diamonds that everyone is now talking about.
He added:
If there were any diamonds, I’d have been the last person to notice. I’m not really into jewels. But I didn’t receive any diamonds and nor did my ex-wife.
(On her Twitter feed Jemima has confirmed Imran’s account: “No Charles Taylor didn’t give me any dirty looking pebbles — unsurprising given the pile of dirty laundry I’m wearing in that postnatal pic.”)
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