Memogate commission: Elusive Ijaz begins testimony from London

Says RIM stores data for 3 months only, needs to be retrieved forensically; Haqqani’s counsel raises objections.

ISLAMABAD:

Amidst vociferous opposition from former ambassador Husain Haqqani’s counsel, the elusive self-proclaimed whistle-blower in the Memogate scandal Mansoor Ijaz finally recorded his statement with a judicial commission on Wednesday, via a video link from the Pakistan High Commission in London.

Haqqani had offered the United States to conduct raids on Pakistani soil to capture or kill al Qaeda leadership – including Mullah Omer and Ayman al Zawahiri and Sirajuddin Haqqani – if the army and intelligence chiefs, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, were forced by the US to step down, Ijaz told the judicial commission.

Haqqani had also offered full cooperation with the Indian government in capturing culprits involved in Mumbai attacks under a new national security team palatable to the US, Ijaz told the commission chaired by Balochistan High Court Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa.

The other two members of the commission – Sindh High Court Chief Justice Musheer Alam and Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Iqbal Hameed-ur-Rehman – were also present at the virtual hearing.

Counsel’s objections

Haqqani’s counsel, Zahid Bukhari, objected to the video link, saying he wanted to be in London to cross-examine Ijaz during the process of recording his statement.

Since the British High Commission returned his passport late Tuesday evening, Bukhari said he could not depart for London.

The commission, however, dismissed the objection and asked Bukhari to travel to London whenever he wishes to.

Bukhari then objected to Ijaz reading his witness statement, at which the commission asked the latter to deliver it verbally.

I cannot recollect the exact dates and BlackBerry messages without the testimony in front of me, Ijaz said. Justice Isa asked him to state whatever was in his mind, and that he would be allowed to consult his testimony for accurate answers at the stage of cross examination.

Bukhari, however, was relentless.

“Look at him playing with his phone set. This is no way to record a witness statement,” he exclaimed.

The commission’s head then asked the secretary in London, Raja Jawad Abbas, to sit next to Ijaz and verify the messages on his mobile phone.

Ijaz’s testimony

Ijaz said that Haqqani first contacted him via SMS on May 3, a day after the Abbottabad raid, but that message had no relevance to the memo that eventually became the cause of the controversy.

Haqqani subsequently messaged him again on May 9.

When he called Haqqani after an exchange of a series of BlackBerry messages, Ijaz said the former envoy to the US was stressed, nervous, and sought his help to deliver a message to the then US military chief Admiral Mike Mullen to force the army and ISI chiefs to step down. “The Army wants to bring the government down,” Ijaz quoted Haqqani as saying.

Why did Haqqani need Ijaz to do this for him?

The former said it was impossible, in his official position, to get such a message to the Americans without risking the possibility of detection by ISI or military officers at the embassy in Washington, Ijaz said.

Haqqani believed Ijaz was “plausibly deniable” as a channel, and that no one would believe it if the exchange was made public. Ijaz said he subsequently contacted General James Jones on Haqqani’s request.

Gen Jones said he would not consider taking any message to Admiral Mullen if it was not in writing, and insisted on having a higher political authority than Haqqani, Ijaz added.

He continued but the commission adjourned hearing until 11 am on Thursday (today). The commission will first decide three applications, filed by Haqqani’s counsel, against Ijaz’s right to record his statement. The hearing will resume at 2 pm.

Retrieving the data

Before the hearing was adjourned, Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq informed the commission that BlackBerry’s manufacturer, Research in Motion (RiM), has turned down the request to provide Ijaz and Haqqani’s data once again.

Despite giving a waiver, RiM cannot provide the data because it only maintains record for three months, Ijaz said.

The data can only be retrieved forensically from his handsets and he is willing to hand them over to a forensic expert appointed by the commission, Ijaz added.

(Read: Storm in a tea cup)

Published in The Express Tribune, February 23^rd, 2012.