Memo Commission to meet again today

ISLAMABAD: The judicial commission, probing the memo scandal will resume the hearing today after recording former DG ISI Shuja Pasha’s statement on Thursday, Geo News reported.

The commission comprises of Chief Justice Balochistan High Court, Justice Qazi Faez Issa, Chief Justice Sindh High Court, Justice Musheer Alam and Chief Justice Islamabad High Court, Justice Iqbal Hameed-ur-Rehman.

Former DG ISI Shuja Pasha, Husain Haqqani's counsel Zahid Bukhari, Mansoor Ijaz's lawyer Akram Sheikh and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman Yasin Malik were present during Thursday’s proceedings.

During proceedings, former DG ISI Shuja Pasha informed the memo commission that there was no plan of a coup by the Army after the May 02 covert US raid in Abbottabad. “If there was a threat, the ISI would have known about,” Pasha said.

While recording his testimony, Shuja Pasha said he consulted only the military leadership after coming to know about Marsoor Ijaz's article in the Financial Times. “I wanted to know about the author of the memo and directed a source in the ISI to contact Mansoor who agreed to meet me and share details but outside Pakistan and the US.”

As the military top brass had asked me to go ahead, the meeting was arranged in a London hotel on October 22, 2011 which lasted for four hours, Shuja told the commission. It is pertinent to mention here that the former spy chief was attending the proceedings of the commission for the first time.

The former spymaster told that he is satisfied with Mansoor Ijaz’s corroborative material to prove his version, but is not satisfied with the denial of Husain Haqqani.

The commission has so far completed the testimony and cross-examination of two most important and fundamental witnesses in the memo scandal - Mansoor Ijaz and Lt Gen (R) Shuja Pasha.

Mansoor Ijaz has already offered everything that he had claimed to have in possession. He has also offered his BlackBerry sets to the commission for forensic evidence, withdrew his privacy to enable the commission to crosscheck from RIM his version of BBM messages, provided to the commission certified copies of his phone record and shared with commission judges’ hundreds of his emails exchanged with Haqqani and others.

Haqqani, however, claimed to have lost his BlackBerry sets, forgot even their pin codes and even cannot categorically deny or admit MI’s claims about BBM messages on the basis of ‘no recollection of the (BBM) messages as reproduced (by MI)’.

General Pasha also confirmed that Haqqani was the guest at the presidency after his removal from ambassadorship and during his stay in Pakistan while he was not allowed to go outside Pakistan without the Supreme Court’s permission.

Husain Haqqani cited a heart problem as the reason for his absence from proceedings that was disapproved by the commission as it was not satisfied with the excuse and thus rejected it.

Earlier, he wanted to give his testimony through a video link from London because he was desirous of having being treated in the same manner as the commission took care of Mansoor Ijaz. Later he came up with an excuse that he feels threatened to come to Pakistan because of Mansoor Ijaz’s connections with 24 intelligence agencies of the world.

But both the commission and the Supreme Court did not find any weight in his excuses so rejected it. On Wednesday, he came up with some newly developed health problems for which he contended that he could not travel to Pakistan.