News
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Memo a pack of lies, federation’s rejoinder tells Supreme Court* Rejoinder declares that Mansoor Ijaz had tried to pitch institutions in Pakistan against each other
* Pasha should have informed PM about his meeting with Ijaz
By Hasnaat Malik
ISLAMABAD: In reply to the affidavits of Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Director General Lt Gen Ahmad Shuja Pash in the memo case, the federation on Monday stated that General Pasha should have first informed Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani of his meeting with US-based businessman Mansoor Ijaz.
Interior Secretary Khawaja Muhammad Siddique Akbar has submitted an 18-page affidavit on behalf of the federation in compliance with the Supreme Court’s December 19 order.
The federation stated that Kayani came to know the details of ‘memo’ issue through the ISI chief on October 24, 2011, so why he did he take so long to report the matter to the prime minister in a case where according to him (Kayani) the time was of the essence.
It is to be noted that Kayani had met with the prime minister on November 13 regarding the matter.
The federation termed the alleged memo as a pack of lies and declared that Mansoor Ijaz had tried to pitch the institutions of Pakistan against on another.
To para 10 of the army chief’s affidavit that ‘there is nothing denying the facts that the ‘memo’ exists and it is also admitted to have been delivered and received by the US authorities’, the federation’s affidavit submitted that ‘Kayani’s opinion needs no comments’.
The federation, rejecting the army chief’s affidavit that memo was an attempt to weaken the morale of Pakistan armed forces, said that Pakistan was a lucky country to have the 8th largest army in the world, therefore, no one can weaken the morale of Pakistan armed forces.
The affidavit recalled that the federal government as well as the Presidency had already issued denial of the contents of the article published in Financial Times on October 10, 2011 about the alleged memo. The affidavit said it was the stance of the federation that the federal government (including the Constitutional head of the state, the constitutional chief executive of the country, or any other component of the federal government) had neither conceptualised nor initiated or in any manner had anything to do with the alleged memo or the allegations or view expressed therein.
The federation again said that the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, which had representation from all the political parties of the country as mandated by both the Houses of Parliament, is examining the facts and circumstances of the matter.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk