News
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Ijaz records statement before memo panel* Presents evidence, data to commission secretary in London
By Ali Hassan
ISLAMABAD: The central character in the memo scandal, Pakistani-US businessman Mansoor Ijaz, recorded his testimony on Wednesday from the Pakistan High Commission in London through videoconferencing.
Memo commission Secretary Raja Jawad Abbas and counsel for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Rashid A Rizvi, flew to the London High Commission, while former ambassador Husain Haqqani’s counsel, Zahid Bukhari, and Mansoor Ijaz’s lawyer, Akram Sheikh, remained in Pakistan.
The judicial commission is chaired by Balochistan High Court Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa, while other members are Sindh High Court Chief Justice Musheer Alam and Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Iqbal Hameedur Rehman.
During the proceedings, Ijaz submitted his 29-page testimony to the commission secretary along with his BlackBerry PIN, phone numbers, emails, code words, documents and other key information regarding his conversation with Haqqani on writing of the memo and its delivery to Admiral Mike Mullen.
On the other hand, Attorney General of Pakistan Maulvi Anwarul Haq submitted a reply on behalf of BlackBerry maker, Research in Motion, maintaining that the company had refused to provide the record of communication between Haqqani and Ijaz, as it did not keep records of communication over three months old.
Ijaz told the commission that he met former ISI chief Ahsanul Haq in 2003 in Brussels and former president Pervez Musharraf in 2005 and 2006 in London. He said his last meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari was in May 5, 2009 at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington DC on the invitation of Haqqani, to brief the president shortly before he met with US officials at the White House. He further stated that he met with ISI chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha on October 22, 2011, at the latter’s request for around four hours in London to provide him with the same facts he provided to the commission.
Ijaz stated that over the past decade, he had maintained regular contact with Haqqani, adding that the former envoy sent him a BlackBerry message on May 9, 2011, asking him to return a call to London, where Haqqani was residing. He said Haqqani told him the army wanted to topple the government, which wanted to send a message to Washington through Admiral Mike Mullen.
“Haqqani informed me that it was urgent to get a message – verbally – to ‘the Americans’ that the Obama administration needed to back the army down. He said this was a ‘1971 moment’ – a reference I did not understand at all at the time he first made it and had to ask him at the end of the call to clarify for me because he repeatedly referred to this phrase during the call,” Ijaz maintained.
The commission adjourned the hearing until today to further record Mansoor Ijaz’s testimony.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk