ISLAMABAD: Expressing dissatisfaction over steps taken by the federal government regarding the repatriation of former ambassador of Pakistan to the United States Hussain Haqqani, the Supreme Court Tuesday summoned the secretaries for ministries of foreign affairs and interior to appear on Wednesday (today) in the Memogate case.
“We are not satisfied with the progress,” Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar remarked as a three-member Supreme Court bench resumed hearing into the case. The CJP remarked that a person has run away after giving a statement, adding that this has now become a matter of the court and country’s honour.
During the hearing, the CJP summoned Additional Attorney General Rana Waqar to ask when the government will arrest and bring back Haqqani from the US. Rana submitted that an FIR has been registered against Haqqani over the misappropriation of funds at the embassy during his tenure. However, the bench shared its dissatisfaction over the inefficiency of the government to bring Haqqani back to Pakistan and said that they will reach out to the Interpol if progress isn’t observed.
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 28th 2018.
