FIA seeks Interpol red notice for Haqqani

Little chance Pakistan’s request will be honoured

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Saturday confirmed that they had reached out to Interpol regarding a red notice for the arrest of former ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani.

According to sources in the agency, all formalities required by Interpol for the issuance of a red notice have been fulfilled.

This is not for the first time that the FIA has contacted Interpol for issuance of red notice for Haqqani. An attempt has been made in this regard earlier as well. However, the Interpol had raised certain queries in response to the FIA’s request, said sources in relevant quarters.

Last month, the FIA had registered a case against the former envoy accusing him of committing ‘criminal breach of trust, misuse of authority and embezzlement of funds’ at Pakistan’s embassy in the US. The case was registered under Section 3, 4, 409, 420, and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code.



On February 1, the Supreme Court of Pakistan had constituted a three-member bench to resume hearing of the memogate case involving Haqqani.

Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar had in the last week of February ordered the FIA to complete legal action against Haqqani. On February 15, the SC had issued a warrant for the arrest of Haqqani over his alleged involvement in the memo scandal and his failure to appear before the Supreme Court.

The memo scandal erupted in 2011 when Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz claimed to have received an ‘anti-army’ memo from Haqqani to be delivered to Admiral Mike Mullen, the then chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

A court notice has already been issued to Haqqani and other respondents of the case including former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. The scandal was taken to the Supreme Court by Sharif, opposition leader at that time, which led to Haqqani’s resignation.



The cases pertaining to the memogate were registered under Sections 120b (hatching a criminal conspiracy) and 121a (waging a war against Pakistan) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

According to the international criminal police organisation, Interpol’s charter forbids it from undertaking interventions or activities of a political, military, religious, or racial nature or involving itself in disputes over such matters.

Interpol’s work focuses primarily on public safety and battling transnational crimes against humanity, child pornography, computer crime and cybercrime, drug trafficking, environmental crime, genocide, human trafficking, illicit drug production, copyright infringement, illicit traffic in works of art, intellectual property crime, money laundering, organised crime, corruption, terrorism, war crimes, weapons smuggling, and white-collar crime.



There appears to be a little chance that Interpol will honour the request of the FIA for issuance of red notice against Haqqani, according to sources.

Last year, the FIA had also sent an application to Interpol requesting the issuance of a red warrant against Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) founder Altaf Hussain. This was FIA’s second request for Interpol to arrest and extradite Hussain after the first one was rejected on the basis of some queries. However, serious developments are yet to take place on the request of the agency.