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Published 16 Jan, 2012 03:50am

Ijaz promises to give new evidence

WASHINGTON: A Pakistani-American businessman, who started the Memogate scandal, has promised Pakistan’s embattled former ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, that he will come to Pakistan to appear before a judicial commission probe and “expose all his lies”.

“Dream on Mr Haqqani. I am coming to Pakistan. And I am going to tell a truth which you will no longer be able to hide from,” he wrote in a message released by his office. “I will tell it with such clarity and vigour that you and your brilliant legal team will find no space to run from it.”

In an article he wrote for the Financial Times in October, Mr Ijaz calimed that Mr Haqqani had given him an unsigned memo for the then US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, seeking US help to counter a possible coup following Osama bin Laden’s elimination.

“I welcome your cross-examination. I look forward to ensuring the untruths, half-truths and whole lies that have been told thus far are clarified in front of the people of Pakistan so that truth and transparency become the enduring legacy for government that is of the people, for the people and by the people,” Mr Ijaz wrote in his latest rejoinder to statements from Mr Haqqani and his lawyers.

Mr Ijaz said that he continued to receive threats aimed at preventing him from appearing before the judicial commission that probes the memogate scandal.

“These threats were sent to the same email address I used to communicate the original draft of the memorandum in question,” he wrote.

Mr Ijaz claimed that Ambassador Haqqani had orchestrated a media campaign against him since his resignation in November designed to introduce doubts and exploit the complexities and nuances of this case “that were entirely designed by him with, according to him, authority from his ‘boss’”.

Mr Haqqani has also orchestrated a political campaign in Washington to bolster his own credentials, “bought and paid for by Pakistani taxpayer funds, that have only served to deepen suspicions about where his real loyalties lie”, he wrote.

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