Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik has petitioned a Pakistani panel probing the memo scandal that he should be given an opportunity to refute claims by a controversial American businessman about his contact with a former senior RAW official.
Mr Malik’s application to be made a party in the memo issue was filed on Saturday by his Pakistani wife, Mishal Malik.
Mansoor Ijaz triggered a major crisis in political and diplomatic circles in Pakistan when he made public a mysterious memo that had sought US help to stave off a feared coup in the country after the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad on May 2.
Mr Malik approached the Supreme Court-appointed judicial commission after the Pakistani-American Ijaz claimed during his cross-examination that he had arranged a meeting between Mr Malik and C.D. Sahay, a former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).
In Srinagar, Mr Malik’s counsel Zaffar Ahmad Shah in a letter to Pakistan Chief Justice Iftkhar M. Chaudhury, said Mr Malik should be given an opportunity to depose before the commission for clearing his position.
“A request was sent to the Pakistan Commission that Malik would like to depose before it,” Mr Shah said.
“... He (Malik) would like to make free, fair and truthful statement before the commission, which will go a long way in finding answers to the questions forming subject of the reference,” Mr Shah said in the letter.
Ms Mishal said in the application that had levelled false allegations against her husband who is the leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front.
These “baseless” allegations have caused her a lot of hurt and damaged Mr Malik’s reputation, she said. She asked the commission to provide Mr Malik an opportunity to explain his position. Mr Malik was currently in Srinagar and could appear before the panel in April, she said.