Haqqani sets sail for UAE

Supreme Court conditionally lifts ban on Haqqani's travel abroad. Expected to join wife in US.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan's former Ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani departed from Pakistan under thick security blanket in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Haqqani arrived at the Islamabad airport with a heavy security escort. He entered the airport without talking to the gathered media.

He is expected to fly to the UAE, from where he his believed to take another flight to the US, and join his wife Farahnaz Ispahani there.

Updated from print version (below)

Next stop may be US: Haqqani heads for UAE as travel ban lifted

Former ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani can finally breathe a sigh of relief. The ex-envoy was set to avail the first opportunity he got to leave the country on Tuesday morning, after the Supreme Court conditionally lifted a ban on his travel abroad.

An application by Haqqani’s counsel, Asma Jahangir, requesting that her client be allowed to join his family abroad was received positively. The application further stated that the former ambassador had fully cooperated with the commission and also undertook to return to Pakistan on four days’ notice to join the proceedings, if and when required to do so by the commission.

“I am glad that the Supreme Court has restored my right to travel, which had been rescinded without any charges being filed against me,” Haqqani told Reuters after the decision. “I will join my family in the US after discussions with leaders of the Pakistan Peoples Party.”

Haqqani, who resigned from ambassadorship over the memo controversy immediately after he landed in Pakistan in November last year, was, at last report, scheduled to leave early morning today (Tuesday) on an Etihad Airways flight for Abu Dhabi as his first destination.

However, it remained unclear as to whether Haqqani would proceed to the US or remain in the UAE for some time.

After the apex court’s decision on Monday, Haqqani held a meeting with the deputy chief of the US Mission in Islamabad, Jonathan Pratt, at the Prime Minister House where the memo case and other issues were discussed, officials said.

Close associates of the former ambassador said that he was expected to leave the Prime Minister House at 2am for Islamabad’s Benazir International Airport under tight security.

“He [Haqqani] will meet the top leadership of Pakistan Peoples Party in Dubai and will take a final decision as to whether he should travel to the US to meet his children or not,” said the associate. “Most likely, his family will fly to Dubai from Washington,” he added, saying: “His wife Farahnaz Ispahani will reach Dubai on Wednesday evening.”

Haqqani’s counsel Asma Jehangir said, “No one could stop Haqqani from travelling abroad. My client was innocent”. Commenting on the apex court’s order, she told The Express Tribune, “It is a victory of truth”.

The former envoy told media that the apex court’s order on lifting the ban on traveling abroad was “a victory of justice”.

(WITH ADDITIONAL INPUT FROM REUTERS)


Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st, 2012.