The case of a socialite

Jemima Khan was persuaded to go to court for Julian Assange. Photo / Getty Images

Manically private, undemonstrative and a blusher. It's not how most people would imagine Jemima Khan, the glamorous ex-wife of cricketer Imran Khan, former girlfriend of Hugh Grant, confidante of Princess Diana and star performer before the massed microphones and cameras of the world's media outside the WikiLeaks court hearing in London.

Yet that's how she describes herself. She said as much in June when writing in the Sunday Times about the social networking site Twitter, a place she had always assumed "gives monomaniacs a Tannoy".

For all Khan's blushing, "socialite" is how the press usually brands her, this beautiful, immaculately coiffured friend to blue bloods and entertainment royalty alike, who parties with Kate Moss and Tom Jones, with Guy Ritchie, Natalie Imbruglia and members of Pink Floyd.

A socialite! Jemima hates that. "Calling me a 'socialite' is such a lazy way for journalists to undermine me," she complained last week on Twitter, to which she has lately become a convert.

She has 31,000 followers, whom she exhorts to consume the output of veteran leftist campaigners such as John Pilger and Michael Moore, her new allies in opposing the extradition to the US of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.

"Keep being warned that the right-wing press are going to slaughter me for this stance," Khan said on Twitter, where she corresponds earnestly with the radio presenter Richard Bacon and the new CNN chat show king Piers Morgan.

Clearly she has had stick for the contradiction some see in the wealthy Jemima stepping outside of the Capability Brown-designed grounds of her £15 million ($31m ) Oxfordshire mansion, Kiddington Hall, to take up cudgels for human rights. "I rarely go out, I write, have worked for charities my entire adult life and I campaign on issues that I believe in," she protested to one of her online correspondents.

And it's true, she is a dedicated campaigner, and a brave one. She has worked hard for Unicef in raising awareness of child poverty, enforced labour and sexual exploitation. Three years ago, she took to the streets to protest over the regime of Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, reflecting her enduring concern for the country where she lived for much of her nine-year marriage. Her conversion from Judaism to Islam still makes her a target for bigots of all religious hues.

Writing in the Observer a fortnight ago, Khan, 36, explained her reasons for supporting Assange, whom she praises for his role in exposing "war crimes" but who is wanted in Sweden for alleged sex offences.

"I was there because I believe that this is about censorship and intimidation," she wrote. "An accusation of rape is the ultimate gag. Until proved otherwise, Assange has done nothing illegal, yet he is behind bars."

Khan said, although she had some concerns about the way WikiLeaks operates, she believes the site is central to the future of investigative journalism.

"I feel passionately that democracy needs a strong and free media. It is the only way to ensure governments are honest and remain accountable."

As well as being a dedicated mother to her two sons, she sees herself as a writer and dreams of writing a novel. Among her journalistic assignments has been an interview with Musharraf conducted in Rawalpindi for the Independent in 2008. She also reminded readers that during her time in Pakistan, Musharraf's predecessor, Nawaz Sharif, attempted "to have me jailed on trumped-up politically motivated charges of smuggling" antique tiles out of the country.

That experience may have encouraged her interest in the Assange case, where her involvement became public only because the WikiLeaks founder's lawyer, Mark Stephens, persuaded her to go to court and act as surety rather than be a mere anonymous supporter.

"I was nervous about the inevitable media circus, but felt that it was the right thing to do," she said.

Her father, the billionaire financier Sir James Goldsmith, was briefly the publisher of the French news magazine L'Express. But he was hardly seen as a champion of free speech. His long-running battle with Private Eye nearly bankrupted the magazine. Jemima's mother, Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart, daughter of the eighth Marquess of Londonderry, would certainly not baulk at being called a "socialite". She was once described by the Daily Telegraph as a "one-woman glitterati procurement programme"; Annabel's club, the London hangout of the upper-class party set, was named after her by her first husband, Mark Birley. But she also has a campaigning spirit and was spotted on that 2007 Musharraf demo wielding a "No Justice, No Peace" placard.

Zac Goldsmith, the elder of her two younger brothers, also defies simple categorisation. The Conservative MP for Richmond Park is one of Britain's best-known environmental campaigners. Jemima Khan was only 21 when she married the retired Pakistan cricket captain, who was twice her age.

She embraced her new culture and founded a fashion label to sell traditional Pakistani clothing. After the Iraq invasion, she reflected local opinion by saying she was angry and ashamed to be British.

Even so, her campaigning pedigree and her relationships with the likes of Pilger and Moore are not enough to guarantee her credentials as a champion of liberal values. Writing in the Guardian last week, Hadley Freeman noted Khan was also speaking out on the imprisonment of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman on death row, and described the ubiquitous Jemima as the "Kate Moss of current causes". Of Khan's involvement in the WikiLeaks case, Freeman quipped: "This has been salvation for all those out there saying: 'Hang on - never mind what international lawyers are saying about Assange - let's hear what the daughter of a dodgy millionaire has to say on the subject'."

In the Daily Mail, Jan Moir wrote "it is certainly not the business of Ms Jemima Khan and company to cast their verdicts on the case".

Khan's actions in support of internet freedoms may make her a heroine on the social platform, if not in traditional media. When she spoke to the Sunday Times five years ago, the interviewer complained she had imposed constraints on him worthy of the Downing St spin-doctor Alastair Campbell and opined that Khan "loathes the media".

She may have good reasons for her suspicions. She was the victim of intrusive paparazzi pictures during her marriage, turned to lawyers over tabloid coverage of her relationship with Grant.

Discussing the WikiLeaks extradition case, she complains "journalists should be behind this cause too instead of being pointlessly snide and petty". But despite her difficulties with the press, she campaigns for its freedoms and retains her hunger for writing.

For Jemima Khan there is no contradiction. "Surely there's a difference tho[ugh]," she tweets, "between exposing war crimes/the use of torture and who a celebrity may or may not be having sex with." She's right, of course, but then this Assange story deals with all those subjects and more.

- INDEPENDENT