Mansoor Ijaz agrees to appear before commission on Jan 16

American businessman Mansoor Ijaz. — File photo

ISLAMABAD: The government on Monday decided to issue Mansoor Ijaz a visa to Pakistan without delay, DawnNews reported.
However, the attorney-general told the judicial commission probing the memo scandal that the government could not guarantee that a case would not be registered against the US businessman.
The commission comprising chief justices of three high courts continued its working here in the presence of cameras and microphones recording the proceeding officially.
Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, was also present before the commission.
The attorney-general told the commission that the government had directed the Pakistani High Commission in London to issue a visa to Ijaz when he applies for one. He moreover said that the government would notify the Supreme Court in the event of legal action against Ijaz.
During Monday’s meeting of the commission, chairman Justice Qazi Faez Essa said that no obstacles in the commission’s workings would be tolerated.
Earlier, Advocate Akram Shaikh, the counsel for Ijaz, said the US businessman had agreed to appear on Jan 16 before the commission.
However, Shaikh said Ijaz’s arrival and availability depended on the condition that the Blackberry conversation between Ijaz and Haqqani was made available to investigating authorities.
Shaikh said Ijaz had already issued a legal notice to the telephone company for making the conversation available. According to the company, Haqqani’s consent was necessary for that purpose, which Shaikh said Haqqani had not given. Haqqani said that was not the case and that he would soon make a decision on the subject.
To which, Justice Essa asked Haqqani if he understood what his possible refusal to make the records available would imply.
Haqqani’s counsel, Zahid Bukhari, claimed that Ijaz would meddle with evidence and then blame the Pakistani government.
Shaikh also provided the commission with a petition filed in a session court for arresting Ijaz and said that a false case was being registered against his client to intimidate him.
Moreover, a written statement of Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani was also submitted to the commission.
Brigadier Naubahar of the GHQ’s JAG branch was representing the army chief and DG ISI Ahmed Shuja Pasha.