Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States was sheltering in the prime minister’s official residence in Islamabad last night (Monday) as his lawyer accused the country’s judiciary and armed forces of conspiring against him.
Husain Haqqani was forced to resign as ambassador late last year after a Pakistani-American businessman claimed he had passed on a memo on behalf of President Asif Ali Zardari pleading for US help to oust its army chiefs.
The memo was allegedly sent to Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff at the time, via General James Jones, the former national security adviser.
Both President Zardari and Mr Haqqani have denied making any overtures to the Americans.
General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani, Pakistan’s chief of army staff, and Lt-General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the country’s intelligence director, have encouraged the establishment of a judicial inquiry into the allegations.
The developing confrontation between Pakistan’s civilian and military leaderships has triggered warnings of a coup against the Pakistan People’s Party-led democratic government and intensfied rumours that President Zardari may yet flee the country.
The extent of mutual suspicion between the military and political leaderships was exposed by Asma Jahangir, Mr Haqqani’s lawyer, who said that the former ambassador was too afraid to leave the prime minister’s house to meet her in her office. She was forced to obtain a court order to allow him to visit her at the Supreme Court under a heavy police guard.
Miss Jahangir accused the judges of the Supreme Court of falling under the influence of the country’s army chief after it established a judicial commission to establish whether Mr Haqqani had violated the constitution by seeking to collude with a foreign power against state officials.
An investigation into the allegations had already been announced by the country’s National Assembly but Nawaz Shartif, the opposition leader and former prime minister, appealed to the Supreme Court for a separate judicial inquiry.
Miss Jahangir said she will not represent Mr Haqqani in the inquiry because she believes the judges are acting under the influence of the military establishment.
“They’ve set up a commission not to probe what is there already but to go further and create more evidence. The case is stacked against Haqqani, of course,” she said.
“He would not come to see me at my office in Islamabad. The only place I could meet him was at the [prime minister's] house. I refused to take his affidavit unless we were face to face and in a place where I was certain no one was watching us,” she said.
Lt-General Talat Masood, a former senior commander in the Pakistani army, said the military had already achieved its objectives when Mr Haqqani was forced to resign, but it remains determined that the truth be established, regardless of the political fallout.
“They want to see whether it was done at the individual level or whether it had the blessing of anyone in the presidency. Whatever the political consequences, they still think it’s worth it,” he said.
– Prominent al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban fighters have asked Pakistani militants to set aside their differences and support them in the battle against US-led forces in Afghanistan.
Militant commanders said two meetings were held last year at the request of the Afghan Taliban’s leadership, in which they appealed to the Pakistanis to set aside their differences and assist them.
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