28 December,2011 11:25 AM IST | | ANI
Asma Jehangir has questioned a meeting between the ISI chief Lt-Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha and Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz who had allegedly authored the controversial memo, a day after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had adopted a soft attitude towards the military leadership.
The ISI chief came under intense scrutiny in the Supreme Court hearing a set of petitions in the memo case here on Tuesday.
"I called these petitions 'benami' (anonymous) because two of its respondents are the actual petitioners," Advocate Asma Jehangir argued while alluding to Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Lt-Gen Pasha who are named as parties in the petitions.
In her usual assertive and hard-hitting style, Jehangir, the counsel for former ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani, asked why one of the petitioners changed his mind two days after writing a letter to the Parliamentary Committee on National Security and then filing petitions in the Supreme Court, The Dawn reports.u00a0
Earlier, Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq reiterated the government's stand that the court could intervene only on the question of public importance when it also involved the breach of fundamental rights and described the controversial memorandum as a worthless piece of paper.u00a0
Jehangir questioned a meeting between the ISI chief and Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz who had allegedly authored the controversial memo.
"Why did the spymaster investigate the matter at the back of an elected government, from where this authority came and who let him go. The ISI is not an investigating authority and if we go by their word each one of us in this courtroom is a traitor. The people of Balochistan are traitors, late Benazir Bhutto was a traitor, Wali Khan was a traitor; even one of the petitioners (Nawaz Sharif) faced the allegation of poisoning the former army chief," the counsel said.
