Devil in the details: Ijaz says he penned, sent memo without showing it to Haqqani

Says he subsequently sent it to Haqqani who returned it after deleting a point.

ISLAMABAD:

Mansoor Ijaz may have provided the first chink in his own armour.

The self-proclaimed whistleblower in the Memogate scandal admitted that he authored the first draft of the memo himself and sent it to General James Jones, to pass on to then-chairman joint chiefs of staff admiral Mike Mullen, without former ambassador Husain Haqqani’s consent.

Ijaz said he subsequently sent the original draft to Haqqani on his Boston University’s email address, who returned it after deleting one of the seven points – the one granting US access to Osama bin Laden’s wives.

Ijaz, via a video link from the Pakistan High Commission in London, was concluding his testimony before a judicial commission investigating the scandal.

Ijaz loses temper

The otherwise articulate and confident Ijaz lost his temper when Haqqani’s counsel Zahid Bukhari contested his claim of requesting BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion (RIM) to provide data.

“Did Haqqani produce his handsets? Did he waive his privacy rights in favour of the commission? We are helping the Supreme Court and the commission in searching the truth about the memorandum but we are being crucified,” a flared-up Ijaz asked the commission.

The commission head, Chief Justice Balochistan High Court Justice Qazi Faez Isa, advised Ijaz to calm down.

The defense counsel was asking the commission to note the fact that Ijaz never wrote directly to RIM for the recovery of his BlackBerry exchanges; rather, his attorney had been interacting with the company, Justice Isa explained.

Expressing anger or frustration will destroy your case, the commission chief added.

Ijaz’s attorney, Advocate Akram Sheikh, also advised his client, sitting in London, to keep his cool.

Ijaz, now pacified, resumed: “My Lord, I am giving you 12 emails, exchanged between RIM and my attorney.”

“RIM does not maintain BB messages for more than three months, but they can be retrieved forensically. I have offered my handset as well as the PIN codes to the commission,” Ijaz added.

He also taunted Bukhari for not being familiar with the complex functions of BlackBerry devices.

Memo and its delivery

Haqqani asked Ijaz to verbally deliver the message to Adm Mullen through a ‘suitable’ channel, the latter informed the commission, explaining the sequence of his exchanges through BB messages, emails and phone calls with Haqqani and General Jones.

General Jones, who Ijaz subsequently contacted, agreed to deliver the message only if it was in writing, and had the approval of an authority higher than Haqqani.

Ijaz added that he used an email account created in the name of his son for sharing the memo with Haqqani.

After the memo was delivered to Adm Mullen, Ijaz told the commission, Haqqani informed him about the results of his meeting with the admiral, where he was given an assurance that as soon as the memo is placed before the ‘highest political office’ in Washington, a call will be made to Rawalpindi, or GHQ, asking Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and intelligence chief General Ahmad Shuja Pasha to step down.

Haqqani always suspected that General Jones was the interlocutor but learnt about it once the whistle-blowing article was published in the Financial Times in October 2011, Ijaz said.

Once the job was done, Haqqani returned to Pakistan on May 12, Ijaz added, concluding his testimony.

He requested the commission to allow him to bring to record the events of October and November, when he met the intelligence chief Gen Pasha.

The commission asked him to record his statement at a later stage, or during cross examination by the defense counsel.

Adjourning the hearing until 2 pm Friday (today), the commission asked Ijaz’s attorney to conclude his cross examination, and other petitioners to begin their cross examination.

Ijaz said he would appear at the high commission on Friday, but will be available after that next Thursday.

The defense counsel, Bukhari, said he would inform the commission by Friday if he will cross-examine Ijaz in Islamabad or London.

Bukhari’s petitions

Earlier in the day, the commission disposed of three petitions by Haqqani’s counsel.

Bukhari had asked for forensic testing of Ijaz’s communication devices, before recording the testimony.

The petition was disposed of by the commission, on grounds that the forensic testing will be ordered at an appropriate stage.

Bukhari had also petitioned for enough time to examine the evidence Ijaz produces before the commission. Accepting the plea, the commission ordered Ijaz’s counsel to provide the evidence in advance.

The third petition calling for facilitating the defense counsel’s UK visa was disposed of since he had received it by then.

(Read: Memogate matters)

Published in The Express Tribune, February 24^th, 2012.