ISLAMABAD:
After weeks of bitter controversies, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has formed two judicial commissions mandated to investigate how Osama bin Laden managed to live undetected in Pakistan and the inability of the armed forces to intercept the surgical strike conducted by US commandos to kill him and to investigate the murder of journalist Saleem Shahzad.
Gilani reconstituted the commissions he initially announced earlier this month, both headed by serving Supreme Court judges, after Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was formally approached for a consultation on the nominations. He gave his consent after the government wrote to him on Sunday through the law ministry. The commissions crashed before taking off when the judges Gilani nominated to head them refused to undertake the assignments without the chief justice’s consent in violation of judicial norms.
The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was blamed for intelligence failure when US commandos killed Bin Laden in Abbottabad. Fingers were once again pointed at the agency when Shahzad, famous for his news stories revealing alleged links between Pakistani security service and al Qaeda, was kidnapped and brutally killed. While the ISI said it was embarrassed by the American raid, it denied involvement in Shahzad’s murder.
Justice Javed Iqbal, the second senior most judge of the Supreme Court will head the commission. The other members of the commission are Abbas Khan, former commandant of the Frontier Constabulary, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, former ambassador to the US and a career diplomat, Lt-Gen (retd) Nadeem Ahmed, former chief of the National Disaster Management Authority.
Gilani approved the summaries sent by the law ministry for the constitution of inquiry commissions for the Abbottabad incursion and the murder of journalist Saleem Shahzad, according to a handout.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 22nd, 2011.
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