Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the anti-corruption agency to take steps to extradite Hussain Haqqani, the country’s ex-ambassador to the US, the central character in the 2011 Memogate scandal.

Haqqani was behind a memo indirectly sent to former US military chief Admiral Mike Mullen in 2011, a Pakistani judicial commission concluded in 2012. In the memo, Haqqani sought Washington’s help in averting a military coup in Pakistan following the May 2, 2011 US raid that killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in the garrison city of Abbottabad.

Haqqani, 62, is currently Senior Fellow and Director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute, think-tank in Washington.

The apex court also directed the Parliament to legislate on the matter of bringing wanted Pakistanis back home.

“There are hurdles in [bringing wanted persons back to the country] due to a lack of extradition treaties between Pakistan and other countries,” the top judge remarked.

There was a need to explore NAB’s agreements with the United Nations Security Council under which the extradition of accused suspects is possible, he observed.

The court directed the parliament to legislate on extradition agreements with foreign countries within a month.

Meanwhile, in a progress report submitted to the Supreme Court, the FIA stated that an interim challan of the Memogate case was submitted in the Court of Special Judge Central, Islamabad on August 7, 2018.

The accused is still at large and absconding in the US, the report stated, adding that the process to blacklist his Pakistani passport was underway.

According to the report, the National Central Bureau of Interpol in Washington “has tentatively confirmed that the accused has been located in the United States”.

It said the interior ministry will forward a request for his extradition to the foreign ministry after seeking the federal Cabinet’s approval.

The agency disclosed that several requests to issue ‘red notice’ against Haqqani are pending decision at the Interpol Secretariat in France, Dawn newspaper reported.

The Supreme Court had on its own taken up a case pertaining to steps being taken by the government to ensure implementation of an earlier apex court order of bringing Haqqani back home.

On June 4, 2013, a nine-judge SC bench, headed by then chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, had directed the then interior secretary to adopt legal measures ensuring the return of Haqqani to Pakistan.