Former Pakistan envoy to US booked for 'maligning' country

Pakistan's former envoy to the US, Husain Haqqani, has been booked for allegedly giving hate speeches and writing books and articles defaming the military and the government.

Haqqani was named in FIRs lodged by three people in two police stations in Kohat district of northwest Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, accusing Pakistan of "maligning" in his books, the DawnNews reported.

The three FIRs were registered in Cantonment and Bilitang police stations by Momin, Muhammad Asghar and Shamsul Haq.

The complainants alleged that the former ambassador had caused irreparable loss to the country and defamed it.

Asghar alleged in the FIR that Haqqani was a "mentor of the Memogate scandal" and had issued visas to "CIA and Indian agents" while serving as Pakistani ambassador to the US.

He served as ambassador from 2008 to 2011 in US and was removed for alleged role in what is known as Memogate controversy.

The sections of the Pakistan Penal Code applied by police in the FIRs are 120B (hatching a criminal conspiracy) and 121A (waging a war against Pakistan).

A police official said that under due procedure, Haqqani should surrender himself to them or he would be declared an absconder.

Haqqani was criticised by parliament for his column in The Washington Post in which he had written that he had helped the US forces in eliminating al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden when the government and the Inter-Services Intelligence had been kept in the dark about the secret operation.

It was about a memo sent to former Admiral Mike Mullen apparently seeking help of the then Obama administration to avert a military takeover in the wake of raid at the hideout of Osama in May 2011.

Haqqani has also served as ambassador to Sri Lanka from 1992 to 1993.