Pak agencies start probe into leaked OBL report

Islamabad: Embarrassed by the startling revelations made in the leaked version of the OBL Commission Report, Pakistani military and civilian intelligence agencies have started investigating the source of the leak.

They are trying to find out whether the document was passed on to a media organisation by one of the Commission members, or by those involved in preparing the draft, the Dawn newspaper reported. The leaked version of report, uploaded by the Qatar-based media organisation Al Jazeera, has blamed all government and military institutions of "collective failure" for their inability to track down Osama Bin Laden while he was living in the country. The security establishment was also pulled up for not being able to detect or prevent the unauthorised operation against the al Qaeda chief by the US Navy SEAL`s deep inside the Pakistani territory. "Authorities investigating the matter believe the Prime Minister`s Office may not have been involved in the leak as the version uploaded on the news organisation`s website is without the signatures of the members, and also somewhat incomplete as, among other things, a dissenting note by one of the Commission members is missing," the report said. The report quoting "a well-placed investigator" said in all probability it was the second draft written after the first failed to elicit a consensus among all the members possibly because it is said to have `named too many names`. Although sources close to the five-member Commission, headed by retired Justice Javaid Iqbal, remained tight-lipped, possibly a bit shocked as well at the sudden revelations, the investigator assigned to look into the `leak` told Dawn that the draft which appeared in the press was the second one. "But even that didn`t lead to a consensus as some of the members refused to sign up to it. So a third version was written which was agreed by all commission members save for one. "While nobody else would confirm this, the investigator referred to a `dissenting note` said to have been added to this `final version` by an unnamed member," the report said. The final version was then submitted to the Prime Minister`s Secretariat on January 4, 2013, according to reports in the media, but never saw the light of day till the completion of Raja Pervez Ashraf government`s tenure some 10 weeks later. PTI