Former DG ISI Lt Gen Asad Durrani ready to face any court or inquiry

[Darth Vader]

Muhammad Saleh Zaafir | The News

ISLAMABAD: Former Director General Inter-Services Intelligence (DG-ISI) Lieutenant General (retd) Asad Durrani has vowed that he is prepared to face any court or inquiry in the light of the verdict of Supreme Court. "The government will decide about handing over the case to any agency or referring it to the Army,” he said.

In an exclusive chat with The News here at the Austrian National Day reception, he said that he wouldn’t comment upon the decision of the apex court and he never advised anyone about doing something otherwise.

The former military commander, who served as Pakistan ambassador in Saudi Arabia for a period of two years after completing his ambassadorial tenure in Germany, said that his conscious was satisfied about his acts during the days of duty and for the reason he would be prepared to appear in any court. The whole matter has yet to be probed, the retired general claimed.

He declined to comment on the ongoing debate in the media about the role of political leaders and army with regard to the formation of the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) and distribution of money among certain people and he advised not to jump to conclusions before the completion of the process. General Asad Durani appeared to be composed and relaxed.

To a query, he said that none from the armed forces has contacted him nor he spoke to any army official eversince the Supreme Court gave its verdict in the Asghar Khan case. “I have not met General Aslam Beg after the judgment,” he said.

To another question, General Durrani said that Pakistan’s armed forces, despite confronting difficulties, are fully capable of safeguarding the frontiers of the country and their capacity to perform their duties assigned to them by the nation is fully intact.

Earlier, in his media interaction, the general said that it was up to the court to decide where it was constitutional or not to distribute money among the politicians in the run-up to the 1990 general elections. He asserted that not a single penny went into his pocket or the pocket of former president late Ghulam Ishaq Khan and former Army chief General Mirza Aslam Beg.

He maintained that Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto were at variance with each over the issue of judge’s appointments, adding the army sent an envoy to both the president and prime minister to prevent them from ungainly tug-of-war.

Asad Durrani noted the president decided to unseat Benazir following the Pakka Qila Operation, adding, “I timely received the information regarding the president’s intention and I briefed Army chief Aslam Beg on the issue and he went to the president to talk the issue over.”

Commenting on the money doled out among politicians in the 1990 elections, Durrani said when he assumed the responsibilities as DG ISI, Army chief Beg gave him the message that Karachi’s traders wanted to give donations to the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad but the formula on money distribution would come from the presidency.

Asad Durrani said he made the list of money recipients through notes and all record about this could be elicited from the office files, adding, “Not a single penny was embezzled".

"The decision regarding the distribution of money was made in pursuance of the order received in specific circumstances and deemed correct in accordance with the conditions present then", he added.

 

[fatman17]

Army finds it cannot hold trial of Gen Beg, Durrani

Ansar Abbasi

Monday, November 12, 2012



ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Army’s legal branch, in its preliminary report presented to COAS General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani, finds hardly any scope for the military to try Gen (retd) Aslam Beg and Lt Gen (retd) Asad Durrani under the Army Act, it has been learnt.



Informed sources said that General Kayani has asked the Judge Advocate General Branch (JAG) in the General Headquarters to further study the case by engaging some top lawyers to assess if the Army Act applies on the kind of acts in which the former army chief and ISI chief were found to have been involved by the apex court.



These sources said that after top-level civil-military discussions over the possibilities of initiating criminal proceedings against Beg and Durrani, the GHQ has already started studying the legal aspects of the Army Act to finally conclude if the two would be tried by the military or civilian government.



The government has not yet formally referred the case to the army, whose legal branch is presently studying the relevance of the Army Act. It is said that the civilian government might find much in the prevailing statutes to deal with these cases without referring it to the army.



Counsel for Asghar Khan in the case, Salman Akram Raja, has repeatedly demanded of the federal government to initiate criminal proceedings under Article 6 of the Constitution against the two retired generals, which is purely the domain of the interior ministry.



The SC has also directed the FIA, which comes under the interior ministry, to investigate the matter in the light of the apex court’s order.



According to the military source, under the Army Act’s Section 92(2), no such person shall be tried for an offence unless his trial commences within six months after he had ceased to the subject to the Act.



The same section, it is said, includes a provision envisaging that the period of six months would not be deemed to have expired if the offence relates to desertion, fraudulent enrolment or the offences specified in Section 31 or Section 40 of the Army Act.



The Section 31 of the Army Act pertains to mutiny and insubordination, which has no relevance to the case of Beg and Durrani, who had retired almost two decades back and had neither deserted nor were fraudulently enrolled in the army.



The Section 40 pertains to the fraudulent offence in respect of property including dishonest misappropriation or theft or criminal breach in relation to any government property; dishonest receipt or retention of stolen property; or have caused wrongful gain or wrongful loss to any person.



In the case of Beg and Durrani, it is said that the two followed unlawful orders of the then president and for the same reason have been condemned but the whole episode does not involve public money or loss of public property.



Owing to these facts, the military sources argue that the preliminary report of the JAG branch did not see any scope for the application of the Army Act in this case.



These sources explained that in the NLC case, the Army Act came into play for the main reason that the scam involved alleged loss to public money.



As per Durrani’s affidavit, the sources said, the money involved belonged to the business community and there has been no grievance on part of any businessman for wrongful loss of his money.



Durrani, in his affidavit, said: “In September 1990, as DG ISI, I received instructions from the then COAS, (now retired) General Mirza Aslam Beg to provide logistic support to the disbursement of donations made by some businessmen of Karachi to the election campaign of IJI. I was told that the operation had the blessings of the government.”