Zardari, Kayani phone call: Mansoor Ijaz issues clarification

Says he too suspected authenticity of transcript, had asked court to view it on its own merit.

LAHORE: After denials being issued of a phone call allegedly between President Asif Ali Zardari and Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Pervez Kayani between the night of May 1 and Many 2, Mansoor Ijaz, has offered a clarification.

Ijaz had on Friday claimed that he had submitted to the court, in a sealed envelope, a copy of a transcript of conversation between the Pakistan President and his army chief as US Navy SEALs raided a compound in Abbottabad, housing the then al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

In the email sent to The Express Tribune, Ijaz clarifies that he himself was not sure of the authenticity of this transcript, and had presented it to the court with a disclaimer to view it on its own merit. He added that he had refused to answer questions over this transcript during the cross-examination, and that remains his position.

The full text of the email received is below:

A short while ago, presidential spokesperson, Farhatullah Babar, and ISPR, the official spokesperson of the army chief, both issued denials in the matter of a transcript I entered into evidence during Thursday's Judicial Commission hearing.  Their denials are based on a set of assumptions that now require complete clarification.  Nowhere in the transcript is there any mention of a direct call between President Asif Ali Zardari and Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.  There is repeated mention of calls between the offices of the two men, but none that took place directly between them.

I asked that the transcript be sealed during Thursday's hearing for precisely this purpose -- that I myself was not certain of its authenticity or accuracy, but since it was one factor of many in my decision to ask Gen James Jones to forward the message to Adm Mike Mullen which had been dictated to me by Amb Haqqani on May 9, 2011, it was a relevant fact to the Commission's search for truth about the purpose of the Memorandum.  I asked Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa to evaluate the document on its merit with both his esteemed colleagues before making a judgment about its value to the proceedings.  When asked during cross examination in Friday's hearings whether President Zardari had advance knowledge of the May 2, 2011 operation, I declined to answer until the authenticity and truth of the document is determined.  That remains my position.

ISPR and the Presidency picking up on one specific point based on media reports of what is contained in the transcript demonstrates continuing distortions in the search for truth about the alleged complicity of
President Zardari in the Memorandum affair and the events of May 2nd.  What about the other 40 or so entries in the logs of what happened on that night?  Why has ISPR and the Presidency not yet commented on the veracity -- or not -- of those points as well?  In the search for truth, ISPR and the President's spokesperson cannot be selective.  These organs of state have a responsibility to assist rather than obstruct by confirming or denying on a point-by-point basis what is contained in the transcript.