Deal struck to brush Memogate aside, claims Ijaz

SC mandates commission to record testimony of any ‘relevant witness’,to collect evidence from Pakistan and abroad.

ISLAMABAD:

Conspiracy always appears to be on the mind of self-proclaimed whistle-blower of the Memogate scandal, Mansoor Ijaz. But this time, he claims to be a victim to it, rather than aiding it through memos.

Through an application submitted by his counsel, Akram Sheikh, to the Supreme Court on Saturday, Ijaz accused “the establishment, the Gilani government and other interested parties of having struck a deal on brushing Memogate under the rug”. “There seems to be a convergence among the US and the Zardari-Gilani government on the memo issue,” Sheikh stated.

He said his client should not be blamed for refusing to travel to Pakistan, where Interior Minister Rehman Malik was ‘lying in wait’ for his client to ‘fall prey to his plot’.

Although Ijaz seems adamant to stay off Pakistani territory, he seems equally determined to maintain a role in the case. Referring to his importance as a witness, Ijaz stated in this application: “I still have hard evidence in the memo scandal,” adding that “the applicant holds valuable equipment/evidence which would settle this controversy, ie BlackBerry handsets, computers, data records, emails and notes of conversation with Hussain Haqqani, etc”.

“This aforementioned equipment/evidence is the only hard evidence to settle the controversy and if it ends up in the wrong hands, there is every possibility of tampering and destruction of the same,” he said in the application.  He was unwilling to “violate the chain of custody that requires his own person” to deliver and explain the content of all the evidence available directly to the commission.

He said the Supreme Court mandated the commission to record the testimony of any ‘relevant witness’ and to collect evidence from Pakistan and abroad.  According to Ijaz, the commission’s argument that the cost of travelling and Haqqani’s movement abroad were added hurdles in recording his testimony, does not hold weight – because parties were willing to bear their owns costs.

Haqqani could travel abroad subject to SC’s permission, which had asked him not to leave Pakistan without its consent, Ijaz said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2012.