JURIST - Paper Chase: Pakistan court finds former ambassador guilty of authoring secret memo

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Pakistan [official website] on Tuesday found [order, PDF] former Pakistan ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani [official website; JURIST news archive] guilty of authoring the secret memo that implied Pakistani politicians were collaborating with US politicians. The memo was sent to US Admiral Mike Mullen [official website] in May of last year after Osama bin Laden [JURIST news archive] was killed by US forces [JURIST report]. The court's holding was based on the findings of a commission that revealed that Haqqani had no intention to live in the country, had no assets there, was not loyal to the country and had used $2 million annually received from the US government. The court requested Haqqani appear at the next hearing and noted that Haqqani had promised the judiciary when he left the country to return within four days upon such request. In January, the court had lifted [JURIST report] the travel ban imposed upon Haqqani after the memo in question was sent to Washington, DC. Haqqani resigned from his ambassador position when the allegations were made and when the court formed [JURIST report] the judicial committee to investigate who authored the memo. Haqqani plans to appeal Tuesday's decision stating that the whole investigation process was flawed and noting that he was not given full opportunity to provide his version of the facts surrounding the memo.

The alliance between Pakistan and the US became vulnerable after the controversial killing of Bin Laden by US forces in Pakistan. In May, a Pakistani doctor who helped the US government to find Bin Laden was convicted [JURIST report] for his association to a Pakistani militant group, not for his ties to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website], as was originally reported [JURIST report].