Danyal Gilani says he has had "very little contact" with the terror suspect in the last seven years
Danyal Gilani says he has had "very little contact" with the terror suspect in the last seven years
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's public relations officer (PRO) on Saturday confirmed that terror suspect David Coleman Headley was his half- brother, but said there had been "very little contact" with him for the past seven years.
The PRO, Danyal Gilani, also said his family was in no way related to the prime minister.
Reports in the Indian media "trying to establish a relationship between Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and the family of detained US terror suspect and my half-brother, Daood Gilani alias David Coleman Headley, are incorrect, misplaced and totally baseless," Danyal Gilani said in a statement.
His ancestors had migrated to Pakistan from Jastarwal in Indian Punjab and from Etawah in Uttar Pradesh, while the prime minister's family had been living in Multan "for centuries" and the two families "have no relationship with each other", the statement said, adding that the media reports were creating "unnecessary hype".
Danyal Gilani said he had last met Headley at their father's funeral in December 2008.
He also said that his father had cautioned him against associating with his half-brother due to his involvement in drug-related activities and there had been "very little contact" with him since 2002.
According to Danyal Gilani, his half-brother was born in 1960 in Washington, where their father was working with the Voice of America and had an American wife.
"Soon after Daood's birth, the tenure of my father's posting ended and the couple shifted to Pakistan. In the late 1960s, my father and Daood's mother got divorced, and according to family elders, she went back to the US," he added.
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"His having another name or changing his name at some stage in life has come as a surprise to me," Danyal Gilani maintained.
Headley and his associate Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin, were nabbed by the FBI in the US on charges of plotting attacks against India and Denmark.
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