Whistleblower Ijaz seeks time till 25 Jan to testify before judicial panel

Islamabad: Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz today failed to make a scheduled appearance before a judicial commission investigating the memo scandal and sought time till 25 January to come to Pakistan to testify before the Supreme Court-appointed panel. Shortly after the commission began its third sitting this morning, Ijaz’s lawyer Akram Sheikh said his client wanted more time to come to Pakistan to appear before the panel. Sheikh said Ijaz had been receiving threats and wanted to get insurance done for the safety of himself and his family. He submitted an application seeking time till 25 January for Ijaz to appear before the three-judge commission. The lawyer further said that Ijaz had made an appointment at the Pakistani Embassy at Berne in Switzerland today to get a visa to travel to the country. The members of the commission asked Sheikh to clarify once and for all whether Ijaz intended to come to Pakistan. [caption id=“attachment_183314” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US was forced to resign after Ijaz made public a memo that sought US help to stave-off a feared military coup in Pakistan. AFP”]  [/caption] In a related development, the lawyer of Pakistan’s former envoy to the US Husain Haqqani today contended that Ijaz would not come to Pakistan and was setting all sorts of unnecessary conditions for his visit. Haqqani was forced to resign after Ijaz made public a mysterious memo that had sought US help to stave off a feared military coup in Pakistan after the killing of Osama bin Laden in May last year. The envoy’s lawyer, Zahid Bokhari, told reporters that Ijaz was setting frivolous conditions for coming to Pakistan even though the commission had already ordered authorities to deploy army soldiers to protect him when he arrived. “We want him to be given all possible security so that he can come here to testify before the commission. We will welcome him but we will welcome him with reservations,” Bokhari said. Controversial Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz, who triggered a storm in the country’s political circles by making public the secret memo, has sought time till 25 January to testify before the commission. Tensions between the government and the military reached a peak last week after Gilani said the army and intelligence chiefs had acted in an “unconstitutional and illegal” manner by filing affidavits on the memo issue in the Supreme Court without getting the government’s approval. The military rebuked Gilani, saying his remarks could have “grievous consequences”. Gilani retaliated the same day by sacking Defence Secretary Lt Gen (retired) Khalid Naeem Lodhi, a confidant of Kayani, saying he had created misunderstandings over the memo issue. The apex court accepted Kayani’s request for a probe into the memo scandal while rejecting the government’s contention that the issue should be investigated by a parliamentary panel. The Supreme Court has been building pressure on the government since it struck down the NRO, which benefited President Zardari and 8,000 others, in 2009. It has pressured the government to write to Swiss authorities to reopen cases of alleged money laundering against Zardari but the government has refused to do so, saying the President enjoys immunity under the Constitution. Zardari himself has said that the government will not approach the Swiss authorities as long as he is in office as such a move would be tantamount to putting on trial the grave of his wife, former premier Benazir Bhutto, who too had benefited from the NRO. However, the Supreme Court warned last week that the premier could be disqualified and that action could also be taken against the President if the government kept defying its orders on the NRO issue. PTI