Pak doubts ‘genuineness’ of leaked Osama report
Pakistan has said that it would investigate whether a leaked report of Abbottabad Commission was “really genuine”, the local media quoted information minister Pervez Rashid as saying.
Pakistan has said that it would investigate whether a leaked report of Abbottabad Commission was “really genuine”, the local media quoted information minister Pervez Rashid as saying.
Rashid told reporters in Islamabad on Tuesday that it had to be first ascertained whether the report was genuine, who it was in possession of and who leaked it. “It is too early to ask this question,” Rashid told reporters when asked about any punitive measures being contemplated by the authorities against those who failed to locate al-Qaeda chief’s whereabouts in the country.
In his defence, the head of the Abbottabad Commission, Justice Javed Iqbal told a press conference that the report had been submitted to the prime minister’s office. The commission was formed by the Pakistan government to probe the Abbottabad raid on May 2 that killed bin Laden.
Iqbal also said that news circulating in the foreign media regarding the Abbottabad Commission’s report was baseless and misleading. He said that the report not only identified those who were responsible for the incident but also reviewed the role of different institutions.
He said that the main purpose of the commission was to review the performance of the country’s institutions and statements of all the witnesses that were recorded during the investigation. He also informed that the commission report contains more than 100 recommendations “but the foreign media failed to highlight even one.”
Al-Jazeera blocked
Meanwhile, Islamabad blocked the news channel Al-Jazeera website on Tuesday after it leaked a controversial report about Osama bin Laden’s decade-long stay.
The Qatar-based broadcaster on Monday uploaded a report by Pakistani investigators detailing official failure to check bin Laden’s free movement and unhindered stay at several places before he was killed in a secret US raid in garrison town of Abbotabad in 2010.
Official sources said that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, the country’s telecom watchdog, asked the private Internet service providers to block the website.