Washington: Former ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani has expressed confidence that attempts to force his return to Pakistan on recently filed embezzlement and corruption charges will fail.
Responding to yesterday’s proceedings in the Supreme Court if Pakistan, Haqqani said the Court was being misled by Amicus Curiae, Ahmer Bilal Soofi. The Supreme Court was told on Thursday that Haqqani could not be brought back on charges of treason or contempt of court but could be repatriated on the basis of embezzlement charges filed against him in March this year. Haqqani argued that “the world can see through the legal device of charging a man for corruption after failing to get him extradited for political offenses, including treason.”
He said that unlike Pakistan, most western countries have time limit on how much time can pass before criminal charges can be filed.
Under US law, the government can no longer file criminal charges for an offense once 5 years have passed. Haqqani resigned as ambassador in November 2011 and the five year deadline is long over. Haqqani said if Pakistani authorities try to initiate action against him on what he described as “false charges filed late as a pretext to get me,” U.S. and European authorities would question the validity of an FIR registered in 2018 for crimes alleged to have been committed before 2011. The former ambassador said that it was time Pakistani authorities accepted his right to dissent and ended actions against him that had gone nowhere for seven years.
Published in Daily Times, August 11th 2018.
