Asif Ali Zardari’s wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, spent part of her eight-year self-exile in Dubai before being killed in a suicide blast in 2007 after returning to Pakistan.

The memo said the UAE’s Foreign Minister, Sheik Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, told high-ranking US officials in January about Zardari’s request. The leaked cable said Sheikh Abdullah stressed “the sensitivity of the information.” It’s not known whether the appeal was granted by the UAE’s president, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan. Emirates officials were not available Thursday to comment on the report because of a national holiday.

Separate US diplomatic memos released on WikiLeaks portray Zardari, who took power in 2008, as worried about plots against his life by political rivals.

According to an October 2009 US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks the head of Pakistan's spy agency said he had contacted Israeli officials to head off potential attacks on Israeli targets in India,  According to the whistle-blowing website, Lt.-Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, told former US ambassador Anne Patterson he had been to Oman and Iran “to follow up on reports which he received in Washington about a terrorist attack on India.”

The conversation took place almost a year after the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba killed 166 people in a series of attacks in Mumbai. India has accused the ISI of being directly involved in the attacks, an allegation denied by Pakistan.

“Pasha asked ambassador to convey to Washington that he had followed up on threat information that an attack would be launched against India between September-November. He had been in direct touch with the Israelis on possible threats against Israeli targets in India,” the Oct. 7, 2009 cable reported.

“He said he would meet his Indian counterpart any time... He emphasized that ISI was doing everything possible to reduce the possibility of an attack on India.”

A senior ISI official told Reuters the cables were being quoted out of context and the agency was doing its part in the war on militancy.

“We are committed to fighting this menace and we will go to any length to make the world a safer place,” the official said. “And it may be highlighted that ISI has never established any contacts not authorized by the government of Pakistan and which were not in the interest of Pakistan.”