WASHINGTON, Jan 6: Pakistan’s former envoy to the US Hussain Haqqani, who is wanted by the country’s Supreme Court in connection with cases of treason and embezzlement of funds, has said that he did not receive any warrants about inquiries from the authorities, according to a media reports on Sunday.
Pakistan has initiated a process of seeking the extradition of Haqqani from the US through the foreign office on embezzlement charges after it failed to get it through Interpol.
The Supreme Court had issued warrants to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to produce Haqqani, a prominent critic of Pakistan’s military and political leadership, before it in January last year, but the Interpol has refused to issue an arrest warrant against him.
Haqqani termed the new allegations against him as “manufactured”.
“It seems to be another gimmick aimed to gullible Pakistani media. New allegations filed more than seven years after my forced resignation are obviously manufactured,” the Dawn paper quoted Haqqani as saying in a statement.
“I doubt that Pakistan government will initiate extradition proceedings that are certain to fail and, in the process, open up examination of their secret expenditures in the US,” he said.
Haqqani, 62, was Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US from May 27, 2008 to November 22, 2011, which is considered as one of the most tumultuous period of the US-Pakistan relationship.
He was in the centre of the controversy over allegedly sending a memorandum to the US military chief Admiral Mike Mullen in 2011 seeking his direct intervention to avert a possible overthrow of the PPP government by the military.
A commission constituted by the Supreme Court commonly known as the ‘Memogate Commission’ had in its report held Haqqani as the originator and architect of the memo, the report said.
As part of the extradition process, Pakistan’s Interior ministry has also transferred a 355-page extradition dossier to the foreign office which will be sent to the State Department for Haqqani’s extradition. (PTI)
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