Former ambassador Husain Haqqani.– File Photo

ISLAMABAD: Former Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani has described as “totally false” and “deliberately misleading” a story published in a section of the press, claiming that he withheld information from the Abbottabad Commission about his activities in London on May 9-10,2011.

“The meeting of the Abbottabad Commission was not open to the public so the reporter has no way of knowing what questions were asked and answered during my appearance before it,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.

Haqqani said that without betraying the confidence of the Commission, he would only say the question that is the basis of the lengthy speculative story by the reporter, who has miraculously started discovering material against him (Haqqani) of late, was asked by the Commission and duly answered.

The former envoy also pointed out that the reporter says,” Mansoor Ijaz claims Haqqani handed over the alleged memo to him to be handed over to Admiral Mike Mullen” although no such claim has ever been made.

In fact Mr Ijaz's statement before the Supreme Court clearly mentions that, “he did not meet Husain Haqqani” whereas former US National Security Adviser General James Jones has questioned the veracity of Mr Ijaz's assertions based on alleged telephonic and electronic communications, he said.

James Jones' stance is that Mansoor Ijaz never mentioned Husain Haqqani in his communication and that he, and not Haqqani, was the author of the memo at the heart of dispute within Pakistan, he added.

“It would be more professional for authentic reporters to carefully and intelligently study all the relevant material now on record as well as question the source of information of an unelected politician than to become part of an orchestrated campaign and repeatedly run stories aimed at poisoning public opinion against me,” Haqqani concluded.