Haqqani should tell the truth, urges Mansoor Ijaz
Calls admission of having contact with Ijaz as Haqqani, legal team being boxed into a corner.
LAHORE:
Following the reply filed by former Ambassador Husain Haqqani to the judicial commission investigating the memogate, Mansoor Ijaz has claimed that the diplomat who represented Pakistan in Washington from 2008 to October 2011 when he was forced to resign, did not fully grasp the gravity of the matter before him.
In an email sent to The Express Tribun, he said that former Ambassador Husain Haqqani's selective memory approach in his response filed with the Judicial Commission earlier this evening demonstrates an alarming failure on his part to grasp the gravity of the matter before him. Each and every statement in his response is indefensible, he stated.
“His position that he never discussed the memo with me is a flat lie. As is just about everything else he says in this matter. His problem, and that of his attorneys, is that they are now boxed into a corner from which they cannot escape,” Ijaz wrote.
“Now he says he never denied having contact with me when just one short month ago in his initial appearance before the Judicial Commission, he denied everything about the entire case, including having contact with me during those three days in May 2011 when he dictated the content of the memorandum to me verbally, edited the written version after accepting Gen. James L. Jones' stipulation that the message had to be sent in writing, and then asked me to get it delivered to Admiral Mike Mullen for further action with, as he told me, his "boss's approval", Ijaz retorted.
Countering claims made by Haqqani in his reply regarding BlackBerry Messenger messages, the American businessman of Pakistani origin said “Now he says the BlackBerry messages are dismissible, but so far, Mr Haqqani has yet to provide a single iota of contradicting evidence. Neither has he provided his BlackBerry PIN Codes, or his BlackBerry handsets, or a waiver of privacy so we can put the matter to rest.”
He argued that Haqqani seemed to be misdirecting the court from the truth. “Obfuscation and misdirection seem to be the central tenets of his legal strategy to avoid addressing the truth I have put on the record in transparent, verifiable terms,” he said.
Maintaining that his version of the story was the truth, Ijaz asserted “The point is that the truth is the truth is the truth. No matter how many times I am asked to tell it, it will come out the same way because there is only one version of the truth.”
“Mr Haqqani's story seems to be shifting ever so slowly to the right -- but incrementalism is no substitute for just telling the truth straight out the first time around. That is what he should have done to avoid creating the Memogate maelstrom in the first place and that is what he should do now,” Ijaz accused Haqqani of trying to sidestep.
“Tell the truth, Mr Haqqani. You might just be surprised at how forgiving the people of Pakistan will be of your sin if you admit it,” Ijaz wrote, urging the former Ambassador to come clean.
Following the reply filed by former Ambassador Husain Haqqani to the judicial commission investigating the memogate, Mansoor Ijaz has claimed that the diplomat who represented Pakistan in Washington from 2008 to October 2011 when he was forced to resign, did not fully grasp the gravity of the matter before him.
In an email sent to The Express Tribun, he said that former Ambassador Husain Haqqani's selective memory approach in his response filed with the Judicial Commission earlier this evening demonstrates an alarming failure on his part to grasp the gravity of the matter before him. Each and every statement in his response is indefensible, he stated.
“His position that he never discussed the memo with me is a flat lie. As is just about everything else he says in this matter. His problem, and that of his attorneys, is that they are now boxed into a corner from which they cannot escape,” Ijaz wrote.
“Now he says he never denied having contact with me when just one short month ago in his initial appearance before the Judicial Commission, he denied everything about the entire case, including having contact with me during those three days in May 2011 when he dictated the content of the memorandum to me verbally, edited the written version after accepting Gen. James L. Jones' stipulation that the message had to be sent in writing, and then asked me to get it delivered to Admiral Mike Mullen for further action with, as he told me, his "boss's approval", Ijaz retorted.
Countering claims made by Haqqani in his reply regarding BlackBerry Messenger messages, the American businessman of Pakistani origin said “Now he says the BlackBerry messages are dismissible, but so far, Mr Haqqani has yet to provide a single iota of contradicting evidence. Neither has he provided his BlackBerry PIN Codes, or his BlackBerry handsets, or a waiver of privacy so we can put the matter to rest.”
He argued that Haqqani seemed to be misdirecting the court from the truth. “Obfuscation and misdirection seem to be the central tenets of his legal strategy to avoid addressing the truth I have put on the record in transparent, verifiable terms,” he said.
Maintaining that his version of the story was the truth, Ijaz asserted “The point is that the truth is the truth is the truth. No matter how many times I am asked to tell it, it will come out the same way because there is only one version of the truth.”
“Mr Haqqani's story seems to be shifting ever so slowly to the right -- but incrementalism is no substitute for just telling the truth straight out the first time around. That is what he should have done to avoid creating the Memogate maelstrom in the first place and that is what he should do now,” Ijaz accused Haqqani of trying to sidestep.
“Tell the truth, Mr Haqqani. You might just be surprised at how forgiving the people of Pakistan will be of your sin if you admit it,” Ijaz wrote, urging the former Ambassador to come clean.