ISLAMABAD: The Abbottabad inquiry commission turned down on Monday a request by Pakistan's High Commissioner to UK Wajid Shamsul Hassan to record his statement through video conferencing.

According to sources, members of the commission minutely watched video clips of Mr Hassan's interviews to different media groups.

'After viewing the clips of his interviews to different international channels we saw that he was wellinformed about the May 2 incident. So we are insisting that he should appear before the commission to record his statement,' a member of the commission said.

The high commissioner had written a letter to the commission and sent a medical certificate, regretting that his health did not allow him to travel to Pakistan.

The commission discussed the request and decided that he should appear as soon as possible because the process of interviews and recording of statements had almost been completed.

On Monday, it conducted a detailed interview of Dr Ihsanullah Turabi, Provincial Coordinator for the National Programon Family Planning and Primary Healthcare in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to ascertain how a fake polio vaccination campaign had been launched by Dr Shakeel Afridi to track down Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.

The commission also recorded statements of Bashir Chohan, chief of the Comprehensive Security Services, Rawalpindi, and Maj (retd) Aamir Aziz, a resident of Bilal Colony in Abbottabad where the three-storey complex of Osama was raided by US commandos.

The meeting held at the cabinet division was presided over by Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal of the Supreme Court.

Lt-Gen (retd) Nadeem Ahmed, a member of the commission, also attended the meeting.