Author: Omer Farooq Khan
Publication: The Times of India
Date: August 28, 2009
Introduction: According to a retired Pakistani
chief justice, ISI admitted in an affidativ bribing leading politicians, including
former PM Nawaz Sharif, in 1988 to cobble together an alliance against Benazir
Bhutto's PPP
Pakistan's all-powerful spy agency, the Inter-Services
Intelligence, had pumped millions of rupees and bribed the country's leading
politicians, including former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, to cobble together
an alliance against Benazir Bhutto's party in 1988.
Pakistan's former chief justice Saeed-uz-Zaman
Siddiqui made this revelation in an interview with a local TV channel. "ISI
gave millions of rupees to politicians during former president Ghulam Ishaq
Khan's regime,'' justice Siddiqui said, quoting former ISI chief Lt General
Asad Durrani's affidavit before the apex court on July 24, 1994.
The spy agency gave money to the politicians
to join Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI), an alliance of seven political parties,
including right-wing Jammat-i-Islami and Sharif's Muslim League. Sharif headed
the alliance.
In his affidavit, Lt-Gen (retd) Durrani said
the alliance had the then army chief General Mirza Aslam Beg's blessings.
"General Beg had directed ISI to provide logistic support to the alliance,''
said Siddiqui. The ISI was asked to facilitate the transfer of money that
a Karachi-based businessman provided.
The ISI had opened some fictitious bank accounts
in Karachi, Quetta and Rawalpindi for one Younus Habib to deposit Rs 140 million.
Some of the amount was transferred to the accounts in Quetta and Rawalpindi
and the rest to a special fund.
Benazir had returned from exile to contest
the polls after dictator Zia-ul-Haq's death in an air crash. Despite ISI machinations,
Benazir emerged as a winner with 92 seats in the National Assembly, against
IJI's 53. Ironically, Benazir's father Zulfikhar Ali Bhutto had created ISI's
political wing to destabilise his opponents.
