BlackBerry-Messages-Husain-Ijaz-AP-660
Advocate Zahid Hussain Bokhari told Dawn that RIM’s Legal Director Fredric Nisbet had regretted in his written reply that the company did not have the required data because it was not its policy to retain it for more than three months. - Photo by AP

ISLAMABAD: The BlackBerry service provider has informed former ambassador Husain Haqqani that it does not have the record of messages of the period during which he was allegedly in contact with American businessman Mansoor Ijaz.

Mr Haqqani had sought from the Research in Motion (RIM) company the record of May to October last year on the directives of the memo investigation commission.

Advocate Zahid Hussain Bokhari, the counsel for Mr Haqqani, told Dawn on Tuesday that RIM’s Legal Director Fredric Nisbet had regretted in his written reply that the company did not have the required data because it was not its policy to retain it for more than three months.

He said a similar reply was given earlier to Mr Ijaz when he sought the record of messages allegedly used during preparation of the memorandum allegedly delivered to former US military chief Mike Mullen.

The commission had asked the former ambassador on April 6 to send a letter to the service provider for waiving his privacy rights.

According to Advocate Bokhari, he had drafted the email in compliance with the commission’s directive and the letter had been delivered to the RIM through Mr Haqqani. He said the RIM record was the only evidence which could corroborate the Blackberry message exchanges claimed by Mr Ijaz. “In its absence, the claim of Mr Ijaz has no significance.”

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