General Aslam Baig rejects Younis Habib’s allegations

While submitting his reply to the Supreme Court in the 1990’s election scandal, former military chief General (Retd) Mirza Aslam Baig on Friday rejected allegations of Younis Habib, the former chief of the bank.

A three-judge bench of the apex court comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Parvez resumed the hearing of petition filed by Air Marshal (retd) Asghar Khan in 1996 regarding the alleged disbursement of money among the politicians by ISI to disrupt the general elections.

In his statement, the former military chief said Younis Habib, the central protagonist of the scandal, was trying to scandalize the court’s proceedings and was attempting to malign his and former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan’s fame.

The Supreme Court expressed resentment over a paragraph of Baig’s rejoinder of the statement of Younis Habib, terming it contempt of court. The Chief Justice asked Aslam Baig to tender apology over this paragraph, upon which he submitted written apology and appealed for deleting the said paragraph.

He rejected Habib’s accusations in the opening paragraph of the four-page affidavit submitted to the bench while the remaining parts is comprised other details and references from the previous hearings.

Akram Sheikh, the counsel of Aslam Baig, prayed before the court that his client had previously compiled with the court’s ruling and will do so in the future as well.

On Thursday, the former chief of the Mehran Bank made hilarious revelations about the role of politicians and intelligence agencies in the 1990s election.

While tendering his unconditional apology for his deed, he stated that he was used by former military chief Aslam Baig and then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan.

Due to enormous pressure from high-ups, Younis Habib further revealed that he had arranged Rs 1.48 billion out of Rs 140 million were distributed among politicians while the remaining amount was invested in different projects and deposited fake bank accounts.

He observed, “I am the victim of that national interest and apologize for whatever I did to comply with the order of the former president. Now I put myself at the mercy of this august court”.

Air Marshal (Retd) Asghar Khan had filed a petition, back in 1996, requesting the court to look into allegations that the ISI had provided Rs140 million to create the Islamic Jamhoori Itehad (IJI) to harm the PPP’s election campaign.

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Posted by Faisal Farooq on Mar 9 2012. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.