WASHINGTON / ISLAMABAD: Even as an initial inquiry into the issuing of a visa to Matthew Craig Barrett — a US citizen on a no-entry list — has determined that the failure to update the list caused the mistake, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has decided to summon and question a diplomat then posted in the US for issuing the visa to him, according to sources.

The Pakistan Consulate in Houston issued a four-year multiple visa to Barrett, although his name was on the so-called blacklist, which identifies people who are not allowed to enter Pakistan.

Vice Consul Saadia Altaf Qazi and Consul General Afzal Mahmood Mirza were the two officials who were tasked with authorising visas when the consulate had issued the visa. Qazi, who is to be questioned over the episode, has since left Houston, Texas.

Barrett was put on the no-entry list in 2011 after police in Pakistan charged him under Section 123 of the Pakistan Penal Code, which defines the charge as “concealing with intent to facilitate design to wage war”.

Barrett received the visa on June 22 and was required to enter the country not before June 30. Last week, law enforcement officials picked him up from a guesthouse in Islamabad for entering the country despite the ban.

According to the sources, investigators at the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad looked into several possibilities, such as the consulate’s failure to update the list. Another possibility was that of manipulation of the lower staff, that is, bribing of a staff member to get a visa without consulting the list.

A third possibility was human error. Because Barrett is married to a Pakistani woman and has two children as well, the staff may have issued him a four-year multiple visa without consulting the list.

The initial inquiry, however, has shown that the consulate staff failed to update its list of persons not allowed to enter Pakistan and that’s why they issued a visa to Barrett, according to the sources.

Officer summoned

Saadia Altaf Qazi — then the vice consul at the mission in Houston and currently in Manila — has been informed through the Foreign Office that she should reach Islamabad as soon as possible.

According to the sources, she is likely to arrive in the capital next week. She has been asked to bring the relevant record.

She will be asked how the record of those blacklisted and declared persona non-grata is maintained, and why and how the record of the blacklisted persons was overlooked before the visa was issued.

The investigators would also like to know if the “recommendation” from someone had made the issuance of the visa possible, and in such a case the identity of that person.

At the same time, the FIA has been investigating how the systems at the Islamabad airport failed recently and how its own immigration desk cleared Barrett for entry into the capital.

Barrett claims that the Supreme Court had acquitted him in both the cases lodged against him in 2011.

If that’s true, experts believe that the only punishment to be awarded to him will be another deportation. They say that the only crime he committed was returning to Pakistan, which had been made possible because of a “lapse” on the part of the Houston mission.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2016