Pakistan launches fraud case against former envoy

In this file photo, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani, center, gestures as he leaves The High Court Building in Islamabad on Jan 9, 2012. (AFP)

KARACHI: Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has lodged a “first information report” against a former Pakistan ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, on charges of embezzlement and misuse of authority.
The report, filed after an FIA corruption inquiry, alleges that the offenses took place from 2008 to 2011 when Haqqani was Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington.
According to some reports, the FIA is in the process of issuing red warrants against Husain Haqqani.
Bashir Memon, director general of the FIA, refused to comment when contacted by Arab News.
On Feb. 15, Memon told Pakistan’s Supreme Court that a request had been sent to Interpol for red warrants for the former ambassador.
Haqqani said the new charges against him “will go nowhere.”
“False charges have been filed in Pakistan against me six years after my resignation. These charges have been manufactured after Interpol turned down an earlier request by the FIA,” he told Arab News.
“Their purpose is just to meet Interpol’s criteria for warrants because Interpol does not get involved in political cases.”
Legal expert Hassan Sabir said the first information report is significant, but will remain symbolic until Pakistan signs an extradition treaty with the US.
“This is an important development, but Haqqani can be indicted only once he comes to Pakistan,” Sabir said.
Murtaza Solangi, senior analyst and a former director general of state-run Radio Pakistan, said the report was an attempt to embarrass Haqqani.
“It has only limited propaganda value in Pakistan. In the world of realpolitik, it does not change anything. Unless Haqqani voluntarily returns to Pakistan, nothing will happen to him,” Solangi said.
In 2011, Haqqani was implicated in the “Memogate” case when Pakistani-American financier Mansoor Ijaz was revealed to have delivered a memo from the ambassador to Adm. Mike Mullen, then chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, offering greater government cooperation in return for US backing for Pakistan’s security establishment.
“I intend to carry on my life and let the FIA and the hidden hands behind it figure out how to fulfil their fantasy of forcing my return to Pakistan on false charges,” Haqqani said.