Chaudhary Ahmed Mukthar the defence minister of Pakistan between 2008 and 2012. He was part of the top five ministers in the cabinet of the then prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.
A long time member of the Pakistan People’s Party, Chaudhary Ahmed Mukhtar reveal In an interview to CNN-IBN how the Pakistani Army and the ISI had prior knowledge of the world’s most wanted man living on their soil.
This is the first time, a sitting Pakistani minister of that time, had admitted on camera that his government knew of the presence of Osama Bin Laden on Pakistani soil.
Pakistani leader has publicly admitted what was always suspected that the Pakistani establishment was aware that Bin Laden was living in Abbottabad, close to capital city Islamabad.
To the question if Pakistan’s then president and prime minister knew about Osama being at Abbottabad, Mukhtar said: “The people who were part and parcel of the whole action, like the president of Pakistan, the armed forces chief, the joint chief of staff and the agency people they were all activated and they were all waiting for orders for them to come out with their teams and provide all the information which they should have done earlier.”
Former Pakistani Army chief and dictator General Pervez Musharraf had also claimed innocence. “As far as I am concerned, I am 500% sure that I did not know, whether anyone believes it or not. So I am clear there is no complicity. And I am also clear that army and ISI could not have hidden it from me. Because I am from them and they are from me,” he had said in October 2011.
The information given by Mukhtar is now opened to discussion. Former RAW Chief AS Dulat, KC Singh, former diplomat, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor were on the panel.
Mukhtar’s admissions come on the heels of investigative reporter Seymour Hersh’s claim that a Pakistani agent had leaked to the US Osama’s Abbottabad hideout address.
Osama was killed in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011 in a raid by the US Navy SEALs.