There are now two things that the Supreme Court and Attorney General Irfan Qadir must do. The first is to locate the missing documents since making a case against the ISI and corrupt politicians will be difficult if the judges have to rely solely on spoken testimony. Just about every politician in the vicinity of the Mehran Bank case has some ulterior motive or the other, making it very difficult to take their testimony at face value. Secondly, the Court must determine who was behind the disappearance of these documents. If it can establish who had the motive to make sure these reports are never aired in public, the Supreme Court will get further confirmation of the forces that were responsible for the bribery of politicians in the first place.
It is ironic that those who have previously complained the most vociferously about lost evidence are now most likely to stay quiet on the issue. When former ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani said that he no longer had the BlackBerry through which he communicated with Mansoor Ijaz, the right wing political parties and military circles instantly accused him of lying, even though cell phones are routinely lost and replaced. For the sake of their credibility, these same political actors should now speak out even more loudly for the recovery of the lost reports. For the reports to be permanently lost would show just how little respect these groups have for the independence and work of the Supreme Court.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 25th, 2012.
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Catch those who were responsible for maintaining the files and prosecute them. The credibility of the country is sinking lower by the day.
What a timely and balanced Ed, thanks for that. These lost reports must be sitting with the Rehman Commission Report and may never see the light of the day. Of course the rightwing/mullah/military alliance is quiet on this issue as if it is normal. Every case is dragged and every report is hidden to save the real criminals who have been the most corrupt but accusing the others of being corrupt.