ISLAMABAD: Hours after being indicted by the Supreme Court over a disputed contempt charge, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani seemed winning some moral support across party lines in the National Assembly on Monday before opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan jumped in to share the day`s honours by pulling off a unanimous, though belated, condemnation of a US Congressional hearing on Balochistan. The prime minister`s arrival during the early part of the question hour to louder than usual desk-thumping from the ruling coalition enlivened a dull house and then lawmakers from both the opposition and treasury benches went to him to shake his hand or say a few words of possible support in the case he has to fight in the apex court for not writing mainly to Swiss judicial authorities to reopen withdrawn money-laundering charges against his party`s dead and living leaders in cases instituted by their political rivals in 1990s. PPP-S chief Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao was the first opposition figure to walk to Mr Gilani`s to hug him — and later say he expressed his solidarity to the man who “conducted himself well in the court” รข€“ and then lawmakers of other parties, including some female members from the opposition PML-N, made a beeline to the prime minister`s desk during his brief stay in the hous
London-based Brad Adams, director Asia region-HRW, was asked by The News to comment on Malik Qayyum’s view that the release of the audio just two days before the elections was a conspiracy. Brad replied that his organisation had got this audio recording some three days back and as being an international NGO, it had first confirmed the voice signatures of Malik Qayyum and then tried its best to contact him for his version. Brad, however, refused to mention or give any hint regarding the source from which it had taken the audio. Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director of HRW, when asked by The News that whether his NGO had got this recording from some of its staff here in Pakistan or from some intelligence agency, said that he could not speak about the source. To a question that Pakistani government sees the release of the recording as a conspiracy, he said: “Its silly to talk like that, the government should feel sorry what it has planned for elections.” Malik Qayyum told The News that HRW did not take his version and that it did not know about the identification of the person to which he was talking, which automatically raised questions about the authenticity of the recording. REFERENCE: Malik Qayyum in new row over rigging By Muhammad Ahmad Noorani AG caught on tape again; denies HRW report Saturday, February 16, 2008e
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