Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Army and the Presidency on Saturday denied contacts between Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and President Asif Ali Zardari on May 2 midnight – when US aircrafts violated Pakistani airspace, killing Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad operation last year, SAMAA reports.

ISPR spokesman, while referring to the claims of Mansoor Ijaz, the key character of memo scandal case, said “there was no telephone conversation between the President and the COAS on the night between 1 and 2 May 2011.

“The military leadership has briefed the joint session of the Parliament as well as the Abbottabad commission on the subject matter and there is nothing more to add to it”, the statement, issued here Saturday, said.

The Presidency also denied any such contact. In a statement, Presidential Spokesman, Farhat Ullah Babar termed the media reports and Ijaz’s claims as ‘untrue’ and ‘baseless’.

“A section of the media has carried reports implying that President Asif Ali Zardari had through a phone call, at the night of May-2 raid on Osama Bin Laden, informed the army chief that the operation had been conducted with his approval,” the President House statement said.

The controversial Pakistani-American businessman, Mansoor Ijaz, on Friday claimed that Zardari had advance information of the US raid.

He further claimed that Zardari had telephoned Kayani on the day and asked him not to use Pakistani F-16 jets to target US helicopters.

He made the remarks during an interaction with the media before entering the Pakistan High Commission in London to depose via a video link before a Supreme Court-appointed judicial commission investigating the memo scam. SAMAA