RAWALPINDI: Minister for Interior Affairs Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan chaired a high level meeting to review the circumstances which the ‘blacklisted’ US citizen Matthew Craig Barrett was able to secure a Pakistani visa and enter Islamabad, and to strategise new policies to ensure that such incidents do not happen again in future.
Nisar ordered the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to prepare a new immigration policy that would ensure that persona non grata cannot sneak into the country. He also reviewed a proposal which said that the foreign missions abroad should not be allowed to issue visas without the interior ministry’s approval.
An initial report on Matthew’s entry into Pakistan was also laid before the meeting, which was attended by top officials from the interior ministry, FIA and local law enforcement agencies. The primary responsibility rests with the visa officer at Pakistan’s consulate in Houston, who issued him a visa within 24 hours of getting his application without checking his record, the report said.
The report also faulted the FIA duty officer at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport for allowing Matthew to enter Islamabad. An interior ministry statement issued on Sunday singled out Fahad Qayyum, in charge of the Integrated Border Management System, as the individual who had alerted authorities to Matthew’s presence in Islamabad.
Nisar announced a reward of Rs 100,000 for the officer. Matthew was picked up by the law enforcement officials on Saturday from a guest house in the capital a few hours after he managed to gain entry into the country. Sources said that the FIA’s immigration staff was not aware of his presence in the country until they were tipped off by an intelligence agency that a ‘blacklisted’ US citizen had been apprehended in Islamabad.
The interior ministry’s statement also said that it would be premature to term Matthew a ‘spy’, or link his arrest to the Raymond Davis scandal of 2011. Davis had shot two young men on a motorcycle on a busy street in Lahore, while a car coming to his aid ran over a bystander. His extradition following the payment of blood money to the families of the victims had soured Pak-US relations at the time.
The statement also said that espionage was not one of the reasons why Matthew was blacklisted from entering Pakistan in 2011. However, at the time, police had charged him under Section 123 of the Pakistan Penal Code, which deals with ‘Concealing with intent to facilitate design to wage war,’ ostensibly because he was found in possession of maps and photographs in a restricted area near Fateh Jhang.
