SC rejects Haqqani’s plea for video link statement

Haqqani’s counsel Asma Jehangir pleaded that Haqqani is not well. She said the commission had allowed the main character in the scam, Ijaz Mansoor, to record his statement through video link although he was a foreigner.

The top court’s 10-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry noted that Haqqani had promised on oath to appear before the commission on four-day notice. The court had then lifted ban on his travel abroad because of this pledge.

During the course of brief proceedings, Asma said her client was neither an accused nor a case had been registered against him, but the commission had prohibited video conferencing.

The chief justice told her that it would not interfere in commission’s proceedings.

Ijaz had claimed that Haqqani had dictated him a memo seeking US intervention to rein in the Pakistan Army which was ‘conspiring to derail the democratic order.’

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