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| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistain to defend ISI in US court |
| 2010-12-31 |
| [Arab News] Pakistain will strongly contest a lawsuit filed against its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and its present and past directors general. A Foreign Ministry statement said Thursday that the government and Pakistain's Embassy in Washington would defend ISI and its officials "fully and properly." The ministry statement cited Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani as categorically saying in the National Assembly that Pakistain did not believe the ISI, as an agency of the government of Pakistain, or its present and former officials could be subjected to civil litigation in US courts and "we intend to take appropriate steps to obtain dismissal of this action." Gilani had also announced in Parliament that the ISI chief would not appear in any US court in connection with the Nov. 26, 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack. Gilani was responding to a fiery speech by opposition leader Nisar Ali Khan, who took the government to task over what he described as a failed foreign policy. A US court has summoned ISI Director General Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha and other officials as also Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commander Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi and Jamaat-ud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, the alleged criminal masterminds of the Mumbai attack. The 26-page lawsuit was filed before a Brooklyn court by family members of Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his pregnant wife, Rivka, who were among the 166 people killed during the attack. Apart from Pasha, who has been director general of the ISI since September 2008, the court has also summoned his predecessor Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj and ISI officials Maj. Samir Ali, Azam Cheema and Maj. Iqbal. Commenting on the court summons, former President Pervez PervMusharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... said in London: "Neither the courts of Pakistain can summon the director of the CIA nor the US courts have any jurisdiction to summon the chief of the ISI." Pak Kareem Khan has threatened to sue in a Pak court CIA Director Leon Panetta, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and a man he said was the CIA's station chief in Islamabad for the "wrongful death" of his son in a US dronezap last year in Pakistain's North Wazoo region. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 Gee, they actually pointed out that the US court's "jurisdiction" was purely theoretical and completely unenforceable? Too bad the court couldn't figure that one out on it's own, huh? |
| Posted by: mojo 2010-12-31 11:51 |
| #1 any hint of outrage at the deaths and woundings of innocents by the ISI led and funded terrorists? |
| Posted by: Water Modem 2010-12-31 00:36 |