Former ambassador Ashraf Jahangir Qazi, the author of recently leaked draft Abbottabad Commission report, Wednesday told a parliamentary panel that the final report of the commission is yet to be released. According to Qazi, the leaked version of Abbottabad Commission report was written by him, a member of the commission, which he had circulated to other members for discussion in mid October 2012.
"The final report, for which I'd written a 40-page note of dissent, is still in safe hands...the recently leaked report was the draft which I'd prepared as member of the commission," he maintained. Qazi while clarifying the leaked report before the Standing Committee on Defence and Defence Production, stated that the leaked version of the Abbottabad Commission report is not the report that was submitted to the then Prime Minister on January 2, 2013 which included Qazi's 40-page note of dissent. The final report including the note of dissent has not been made public neither presented to parliament, nor leaked, he added.
The clarification points submitted by Qazi are: another member of the commission, Lieutenant General Nadeem Ahmad (Retd) wrote a draft around March 2012, which was discussed by the other members while the Head of the Commission, former Justice Javed Iqbal, wrote a draft concentrating on the legal aspects of the inquiry around August, 2012. Qazi took both the drafts of the Head of the Commission and the General into consideration while writing his first draft which was completed around September 2012. After considerable discussion among the members of the commission, Qazi circulated another draft around mid October, 2012.
The points further revealed that as a result of efforts by the Head of the Commission and further discussions among all members, some of the differences between Qazi's draft and the General's draft were narrowed. However, core differences regarding findings, apportionment of ultimate blame and responsibility, approach towards the question of possible complicity at any level, and the role of the inquiry including the interpretation of its mandate in the prevailing circumstances remained unbridgeable.
While efforts to bridge these differences did not succeed both Qazi and the General offered to write a note of dissent and in November it was decided that Qazi would write the note of dissent to the final report that was based on the General's draft. First Qazi wrote a longer note of dissent of around 70 pages. There were objections to it. Qazi finally shortened it to around 40 pages, the clarification points further maintained.
The points showed that immediately after Qazi's draft was leaked by al Jazeera (around July 8, 2013) there was a rumour that the actual final report including the note of dissent was either lost or stolen from the Prime Minister's Office or Cabinet Secretariat.
The points further stated that Ashraf Jahangir Qazi wrote both the texts that were leaked and the note of dissent, but his note of dissent was with respect to the report submitted on January 2, 2013 and not his own draft which was written and circulated inside the commission in mid October 2012.
Because of genuine efforts to reach a consensus there are many similarities and commonalities between the final report and Qazi's final version which has been leaked. But there are also significant differences. The basic facts, the testimonies, much of the apportionment of blame, and many of the recommendations are the same or similar. The assessments, interpretation of the mandate and apportionment of ultimate responsibility differ, the clarification added. Qazi neither sold nor leaked the version of the Abbottabad Commission Report that appeared in al Jazeera or anywhere else and with equal certainty it can be asserted that none of the other members of the commission did so either, the points further maintained.
Comments
Comments are closed.