ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Wednesday gave the federal government one month’s time to bring back country’s former ambassador to the United States, Hussain Haqqani, who is the accused in the Memogate scandal.
While hearing the case on Wednesday, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar remarked they would not tolerate any further delay in Haqqani’s repatriation. He said no positive development had taken place on the matter so far. To this, the interior secretary told the court that documents from the United States had arrived just a day earlier. The additional attorney general requested the court to grant a chance on the issue.
The chief justice also questioned the director general of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Haqqani’s return, to which the latter said they would contact Interpol for the red warrant once a permanent one is issued. The DG FIA said he would personally go to the United States to pursue the case.
The chief justice observed that media should not entertain any commentary on the scandal as it was a sub judice matter. He remarked that discussions regarding the case on television channels alleged that the courts intended to open old wounds by conducting hearings on the scandal. Actually, the courts are only following the law, the chief justice added.
The chief justice remarked that he was considering banning on-air discussions over the issue and summoning all those in the court who want to give statements regarding the case.
The scandal erupted in 2011 when Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz claimed to have received an ‘anti-army’ memo from Hussain Haqqani, the then-Pakistan envoy in Washington DC, for US joint chiefs of staff chairman Admiral Mike Mullen. The memo sent in 2011 allegedly mentioned a possible army coup in Pakistan following the US raid in Abbottabad to kill Osama bin Laden and sought assistance from the US for the then-PPP government for ‘reigning in’ the military and the intelligence agencies.
The scandal, taken to the Supreme Court by then opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and several others, had led to Haqqani’s resignation and subsequent exit from the country as the hearing was under way. The chief justice, while hearing a case related to voting rights of overseas Pakistanis, had summoned details of the case on January 29. On February 15, the apex court had issued arrest warrants for the production of the former ambassador.
Published in Daily Times, March 29th 2018.