Islamabad: The judicial commission probing the Abbottabad raid which killed Osama bin Laden last year is hoping to schedule a ‘meeting’ with Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to ‘record his statement’ before concluding its report, a top official has revealed.
“The commission will send a formal request to the Premier to have a meeting with its members when he comes back from his London trip,” an official privy to the Abbottabad Commission proceedings told The Express Tribune.
“Gilani was the chief executive of the country at the time when bin Laden was taken out by American commandos. He must have something important to share with us,” the official quoted one of the commission members as saying.
“His is going to be a very crucial statement and we would like to hear from him,” the official added.
Commandos of the US Navy, known as SEALs, raided a housing compound in Abbottabad on May 02, 2011 and killed the al Qaeda chief, who had been living there for more than five years.
The government subsequently formed a five-member judicial commission to probe the presence of the world’s most-wanted man close to Pakistan’s premier military training facility and the circumstances leading to his death.
The commission was due to submit its report by the end of 2011 but is still struggling to finalise the investigations reportedly because of “indecision” on whether to hold somebody from within the Pakistani political or military leadership responsible.
The revelation that the commission wanted to record the Gilani’s statement comes weeks after it was reported that the judicial body was likely to partially blame Gilani for the raid.
It was on his orders, according to reports, that former Pakistan ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani issued visas to several hundred operators of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who tracked down bin Laden.
But the commission denied these reports in a statement the next day.
ANI
