Pakistan Ambassador to USA Hussain Haqqani on Tuesday approached Lahore High Court, Rawalpindi Bench against inclusion of his name in the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) beneficiaries list. A petition filed through Advocate Sohail Qaiser Hasan has made NAB and Federal Ministry of Law respondents.
Farahnaz Ispahani wife of Hussain Haqqani filed the petition, stating that petitioner is a government servant, presently serving his department abroad, he is unable to personally file the titled petition hence the petition is being filed through his wife who too is equally aggrieved by acts of the respondents assailed in this petition.
The petitioner has sought the intervention of the court on the basis that NAB had used NRO to drop its investigation in an FIR registered back in August 1997 and that till 2008 the investigation was not completed in the matter. NAB could not shape it into a reference even after a lapse of 11 years.
Husain Haqqani was made a co-accused in the case in May 1999 when he was kidnapped and later arrested by FIA on the orders of Saif-ur-Rehman. Three FIRs were filed against him. Haqqani was released on bail in all three cases by Lahore High Court and Sindh High Court in July 1999. Later one of the FIRs was dropped at the investigation stage when evidence was found lacking and another was quashed by the Sindh High Court, said the petition.
His lawyer has contended that the investigation in the FIR under question was an abandoned cause and should have been dropped by NAB even otherwise and using NRO 2007 to drop the case was wrong and then inclusion of his name in the list of beneficiaries of NRO was malicious. The petition has also said that Husain Haqqani neither filed any application to seek relief under NRO and nor was informed by NAB that the investigation has been dropped.