Pakistan Judicial Commission On Osama Episode Fails To Complete Probe
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
06 May, 2012
Countercurrents.org
With majority of Pakistanis skeptical about the assassination of Osama Ben Laden in the US military operation of May 2, 2011 on a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan's judicial commission entrusted to probe the Osama episode has failed to complete its investigation till now.
The government named a five-member commission of inquiry in June last year headed by a supreme court judge to pin point the responsibility for the negligence of civil and military authorities that permitted the US military operation possible.
The commission questioned over a 100 witnesses, including military and security officials, former foreign secretaries and ministers, police and intelligence officials, bin Laden’s family, neighbors, and media personnel in Islamabad and from Abbottabad, former Pakistani ambassador to US, Husain Haqqani who, along with President Zardari, was allegedly privy to the US operation.
Publication of the commission's findings, originally scheduled for December 2011, has been repeatedly postponed, and critics of the government smell political pressure to tone down its findings. The Express Tribune reported on February 16 that the commission is in a fix over the question of fixing responsibility.
According to the newspaper officials privy to the inquiry attributed the delay to the explosive question of naming and blaming those who were at the helm of affairs in secret agencies during the years Bin Laden was allegedly living in his safe house. At least four generals, including incumbent military chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, served as head of the country’s premier spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), from 2003 and 2011 — during Bin Laden’s supposed years in Abbottabad.
Osama's Widows deported to Saudi Arabia
Apparently, the US client Pakistani government is seemed more interested in moving on than seeking answers. Not surprisingly, on the night of Feb. 25, 2012 the local authorities in Abbottabad sent bulldozers to demolish Bin Laden's house after nightfall, erasing a painful symbol of an embarrassing episode involving the government in Islamabad.
On the other hand, on April 26, Pakistan deported the family of Osama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia. Osama's three widows and 11 children were found at the compound on May 2, 2011.
Two Saudi women, Siham Sharif and Kharia Hussain Sabir, were among the widows, according to court documents cited by the Express-Tribune and other Pakistani newspapers. Bin Laden’s third wife in Pakistan was Amal Ahmad Abdul Fateh, a citizen of Yemen.
They were interrogated by Pakistani intelligence agents and eventually charged in March with illegally entering and living in the country. The three wives and two adult daughters were convicted and sentenced to 45 days in prison. Their prison term, which was spent at a well-guarded house in Islamabad, ended earlier last month.
Pakistan snubs US over Osama informer
In a another twist to the Osama episode, Pakistan has reportedly turned down a demand by United States Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to release a Pakistani physician who faces treason charges for helping the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the Abbottabad operation.
Pakistan's political and military leaders discussed at length Panetta's demand and decided the alleged informer, Dr Shakil Afridi, should not be given leeway, according Asia Times. The snub was made in light of a recommendation from the Abbottabad Judicial Commission to register a treason case against him.
Dr. Afridi, who the commission has declared a "national criminal", has been charged with conspiring against the state by collaborating with a foreign spy agency, but not yet with treason - a charge that would carry the death penalty. The doctor was arrested by Pakistani security agencies at his house in Hayatabad, Peshawar, 20 days after Bin Laden's alleged death. In his appearance before the commission, Afridi confessed to having set up a vaccination campaign in Abbottabad aimed at collecting DNA samples to establish the whereabouts of Bin Laden and his family.
Dr. Afridi confessed to conducting a fake polio vaccination drive in the Bilal Town area of Abbottabad from March 15-18 and April 21-23, 2011 to try and get DNA samples from the residents of the compound in which Bin Laden was allegedly hiding.
Amir Mir of the Asia Time reported that well-informed diplomats in Islamabad believe the orders to initiate a treason trial against Afridi must have something to do with the apparent refusal of the CIA to provide any information to the commission after it had been sent a detailed questionnaire last year through the Pakistani Foreign Office. Pakistani security agencies continue to interrogate Afridi in a bid to ascertain how the CIA recruited him and several other civilians who have been under interrogation since the Abbottabad raid. This would help them expose the American's recruitment network in Pakistan, the Asia Times said.
Coming from a humble background, Afridi graduated from the Khyber Medical College in Peshawar in 1990 and was working as the doctor in-charge of Khyber Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The doctor's close aides say the whereabouts of his family remains unknown.
The US Defense Secretary Panetta admitted in his January 28 interview that Dr. Afridi had been working for the Americans and had provided information to the CIA about Osama. Based on this information, US Navy Seals raided his hideout.
In a related development, a group of US congressmen has introduced a legislation in the House of Representatives seeking citizenship for Dr. Afridi. "Today, I have introduced legislation to grant American citizenship to Shakeel Afridi, the Pakistan medical doctor who risked his life to identify Osama bin Laden and help US military forces bring him to justice. If convicted, he could be executed," said congressman from California Dana Rohrabacher on February 4.
"My bill would grant him US citizenship and send a direct and powerful message to those in the Pakistani government and military who protected the mastermind of 9/11 for all those years and who are now seeking retribution on those who helped to execute Osama bin Laden," Rohrabacher said in the House.
The citizenship bill has been endorsed by more than a dozen top congressmen, including Bill Posey and Roscoe Bartlett. "This bill shows the world that America does not abandon its friends," Rohrabacher said.
Pakistanis remain skeptial about Osama's killing
Not surprisingly, in an article titled, One year after his death, OBL lives, the Daily Dawn said a year after that operation, there are no signs of decline in the theory that Osama bin Laden was not killed that day or that he was a “martyr,” not a terrorist.
It may be recalled that a survey conducted by YouGov in association with Polis at Cambridge University two days after the Osama's alleged killing revealed that 66 per cent of urban Pakistanis did not believe that Bin Laden had been killed at the Abbottabad compound on May 2.
Tellingly, this skepticism is not uncommon. In an article titled "SKEPTICISM: The Agendas Behind the Bin Laden News Event... When the Lie Becomes the Truth..." Dr. Paul Craig Roberts wrote:
"The US government’s bin Laden story was so poorly crafted that it did not last 48 hours before being fundamentally altered. There is no doubt that the US is sufficiently incompetent to have needlessly killed bin Laden instead of capturing him. But who can believe that the US would quickly dispose of the evidence that bin Laden had been terminated? The government’s story is not believable that the government dumped the proof of its success into the ocean, but has some photos that might be released, someday."
One reader wrote to Roberts in an email: “What is really alarming is the increasingly arrogant sloppiness of these lies, as though the government has become so profoundly confident of their ability to deceive people that they make virtually no effort to even appear credible.”
Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net and Executive Editor of American Muslim Perspective (www.amperspective.com) Email: asghazali2011 (@) gmail.com.
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