http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=11990&Cat=13
Amir Mir
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
LAHORE: The Supreme Court of Pakistan’s decision to finally fix a date for the hearing of the decade-old petition filed by Air Marshal (retd) Asghar Khan, asking the apex court to punish all those politicians and political parties who had been receiving funds from the ISI, is set to blemish the democratic credentials of many key politicians, especially Mian Nawaz Sharif.
The Supreme Court has fixed February 29, 2012 as the date for the hearing of Asghar Khan’s petition, which alleged that the ISI had dished out millions of rupees to different right-wing politicians during President Ghulam Ishaq Khan’s regime to maneouver the 1990 elections. Asghar Khan’s case is popularly known as the Mehran Bank scandal or Mehrangate in which senior politicians and political parties were found to have been bribed by the country’s mighty military and intelligence against the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). As per details of the case, payments of up to 140 million rupees were allegedly made under the alleged instructions of General Mirza Aslam Beg by the ISI via the owner of Mehran Bank, Younis Habib. Intelligence funds were deposited in Mehran Bank in 1992 propping up what was an insolvent bank as a favour for its owners help in loaning money to the ISI in 1990 that was used in the creation of the right wing alliance Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) and bankrolling the campaigns of many opponents of the PPP.
Asghar Khan, who has recently joined hands with Imran Khan, had repeatedly asked the Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry to re-open his case [which he had filed in 1996] with a view to take it to its logical end. Under the (HRC 19/96) petition, he made the former Chief Of Army Staff General Mirza Muhammad Aslam Beg, the former ISI chief Lt Gen Asad Durrani and Younis Habib of Habib and Mehran Banks as parties in the case. Asghar Khan and Imran Khan, as well as the ruling PPP had recently urged the Chief Justice to take up the petition, which is going to dust off an old controversy. The case had originated on June 16, 1996 from a letter by Asghar Khan to the then Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, asking him to take appropriate action on the then Interior Minister Major General (retd) Naseerullah Khan Babar’s statement in the National Assembly. Syed Sajjad Shah was hearing the case when he was shown the door in November 1997 by his fellow judges following a mutiny, allegedly maneuvered by then Nawaz Sharif government.
Naseerullah Khan Babar had stated on the floor of the National Assembly: “The ISI collected some Rs140 million from the Habib Bank Ltd and distributed among a number of politicians prior to the 1990 elections with a view to manipulate the results in favour of the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad.” Asghar Khan’s letter was subsequently converted into a constitutional petition (19 of 1996) by the Chief Justice under Article 184(3), envisaging the human rights jurisdiction of the apex court. According to Asghar Khan, the purpose of his petition was to expose the role of ISI in manoeuvring the election results and supporting its favourite politicians to fulfill political ends of the establishment.
The respondents in the said case were Mirza Mohammad Aslam Beg, former Chief of Army Staff, retired Lt General Asad Durrani, ex-Director-General of Inter Services Intelligence Directorate and Younis Habib, ex-chief of ex-Mehran Bank Ltd, and then confined in Central Jail, Karachi. In his written reply submitted with the Supreme Court [during the tenure of Sajjad Ali Shah] and subsequently reported by the media, General Aslam Beg had stated: “More serious damage has been caused to the reputation and the goodwill of the armed forces by Asghar Khan in bringing the petition before this Honourable Court and raising an issue before the apex court which of course would receive great publicity and would cause greater damage by scandalisation in the media.”
General Beg added: “That in 1990 the National Assembly of Pakistan was dissolved and the government of Ms Benazir Bhutto was dismissed. A caretaker government was formed to hold elections within 90 days. The then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan had formed an Election Cell directly under him managed by Roedad Ali Khan/Ijlal Haider Zaidi. That later on, the answering respondent was informed by Director-General Inter Services Intelligence that various accounts were opened and the amount of Rs140 million was deposited in those accounts directly by Younis Habib. Director-General Inter-Services Intelligence made arrangements to distribute these amounts amongst the politicians belonging to various political parties and persons as instructed by the Election Cell”.
General Beg then conceded that it had been a routine for the ISI to support the favourite candidates in elections under directives of the successive chief executives. “It is in the very knowledge of the answering respondent that it was the practice with the ISI to support the candidates during the elections under the directions of the Chief Executive of the government”.
Afterwards, former ISI DG, Lt Gen (retd) Asad Durrani, had conceded in an affidavit submitted with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) that his political cell received Rs140 million from Younis Habib for distribution among anti-PPP politicians at the behest of General Mirza Aslam Beg. The 1990 election was subsequently won by the IJI led by Nawaz Sharif, who had allegedly received Rs3.5 million from the ISI fund for his election campaign. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, however, denies accepting money from the ISI for the 1990 election campaign of Islami Jamhoori Ittehad. Lt Gen Asad Durrani, however, says in his affidavit: “It was in September 1990 that I had received instructions to provide ‘logistic support’ for disbursement of donations for the election campaign of the IJI. And all the distributed funds went to the Islamic Democratic Alliance.”
According to the affidavit, those had received funds from the ISI included Mian Nawaz Sharif (in rupees) 3.5 million, Lt General Rafaqat [GIK’s election cell] 5.6 million, Mir Afzal 10 million, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi 5 million, Jam Sadiq Ali 5 million, Mohammed Khan Junejo 2.5 million, Pir Pagaro 2 million, Abdul Hafeez Pirzada 3 million, Yusuf Haroon 5 million [he confirms having received this for Altaf Hussain of the MQM], Muzaffar Hussain Shah 0.3 million, Abida Hussain 1 million, Humayun Marri 5.4 million, Jamaat-e-Islami Rs5 million; Altaf Hussain Qureshi and Mustafa Sadiq Rs0.5 million; Arbab Ghulam Aftab Rs0.3 million; Pir Noor Mohammad Shah Rs0.3 million; Arbab Faiz Mohammad Rs0.3 million; Arbab Ghulam Habib Rs0.2 million; Ismail Rahu Rs0.2 million; Liaquat Baloch Rs1.5 million; Jam Yusuf Rs0.75 million; Nadir Magsi Rs1 million etc.
During the Mehrangate investigations of 1993 which led up to the Supreme Court case, Younis Habib of HBL/MBL, as per his statement filed in court (recorded in Karachi under section 161 Cr.P.C), disclosed that the following political and other pay-offs were made between 1991 and 1994: “General Mirza Aslam Beg Rs 140 million; Jam Sadiq Ali (the then chief minister of Sindh) Rs70 million; Altaf Hussain (MQM) Rs20 million, Advocate Yousaf Memon (for disbursement to Javed Hashmi MNA and others) Rs50 million; 1992 - Jam Sadiq Ali Rs150 million; 1993 - Liaquat Jatoi Rs01 million; 1993 - chief minister of Sindh, through Imtiaz Sheikh Rs12 million; Afaq Ahmed of the MQM Rs0.5 million; 1993 chief minister of Sindh, through Imtiaz Sheikh Rs01 million; 1993 - Ajmal Khan, a former federal minister Rs1.4 million; 1993 - Nawaz Sharif, former prime minister, Rs3.5 million; 27/9/93 Nawaz Sharif, former prime minister, Rs2.5 million; 26/9/93 Jam Mashooq Rs0.5 million; 26/9/93 Dost Mohammad Faizi Rs1 million; Jam Haider Rs 2 million; Jam Mashooq Rs3 million; Adnan, son of Sartaj Aziz, Rs1 million; Nawaz Sharif and Ittefaq Group of Companies Rs200 million (photocopies of cheques and deposit slips, etc, already attached with affidavit at page nos. 42 to 73); Sardar Farooq Leghari 12/12/93 (payment set/off) Rs30 million, 6/1/94 Rs2.0856 million, 19/3/94 Rs1.92 million.
