Islamabad: Pakistan’s former envoy to the US, Hussain Haqqani, has been booked for allegedly disseminating hate speech and writing books and articles defaming the military and government.
Haqqani was named in FIRs lodged by three people at two police stations in Kohat district of northwest Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, accusing him of “maligning” the country in his books, Dawn reported.
The three FIRs were registered at Cantonment and Bilitang police stations by Momin, Mohammad Asghar and Shamsul Haq.
‘Irreparable loss’
The complainants alleged that the former ambassador had caused irreparable loss to the country and defamed it. Asghar alleged in the FIR that Haqqani was a “mentor of the Memogate scandal” and had issued visas to “CIA and Indian agents” while serving as Pakistani ambassador to the US.
He served as ambassador from 2008 to 2011 in US and was removed for his alleged role in what is known as Memogate controversy.
The sections of the Pakistan Penal Code applied by police in the FIRs are 120B (hatching a criminal conspiracy) and 121A (waging a war against Pakistan).
A police official said that under due procedure, Haqqani should surrender himself to them or he would be declared an absconder.
Haqqani was criticised by parliament for his column in The Washington Post in which he had written that he had helped the US forces in eliminating Al Qaida chief Osama bin Laden when the government and the Inter-Services Intelligence had been kept in the dark about the secret operation.
It was about a memo sent to former Admiral Mike Mullen apparently seeking help of the then Obama administration to avert a military takeover in the wake of raid at the hideout of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011.
Haqqani also served as ambassador to Sri Lanka from 1992 to 1993.
