Former special assistant to the minister Zulfi Bukhari has sent a £100 million defamation notice to Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari over remarks about alleged Israel visit, it emerged on Thursday.
Criticising the government over the move, Bilawal, in a press conference on June 28, said that the government must “reveal the details of Zulfi Bukhari’s alleged visit to Israel.”
He said that an aircraft as per reports flew Israel from Pakistan, adding that the government must issue a clarification in this regard.
The former aide of Imran Khan, in a tweet, said: “After consulting with my legal team, I’ve decided to move ahead with defamation proceedings against #Bilawal Zardari for his recent irresponsible remarks.”
“His poor understanding about most things again made him blurt out things fed to him, provoking issues he knows nothing about.”
In the notice issued to Bilawal, Bukhari has demanded PPP chairman publicly apologise on national media, take an oath to not utter such defamatory remarks against him again and if Bilawal does not do the above within 14 days, then legal action would be taken against him.
On June 28, former SAPM Zulfi Bukhari denied that he had secretly visited Israel for meetings with senior government officials, following a report in Israel Hayom newspaper that an unidentified official with a United Kingdom passport had visited Tel Aviv last November.
Bukhari holds both British and Pakistan nationalities.
“[I] DIDNOT go to Israel. [The] funny bit is Pakistani paper says I went to Israel based on ‘Israeli news source’ & Israeli paper says I went to Israel based on a ‘Pakistani source’-wonder who this imaginative Pakistani source is.” Bukhari tweeted at the time.
“Apparently, I’m the only one who was kept out of the loop.”
According to the report in Israel Hayom, Bukhari flew to Israel from Islamabad via London. He was quoted to have met with officials from the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as then-Mossad chief Yossi Cohen in Tel Aviv to pass on messages from Prime Minister Imran Khan and Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa.
The report, based “on a source in Islamabad”, further claimed that the visit came following “heavy pressure” from the United Arab Emirates.
In addition to Bukhari, Focal Person to Prime Minister on Digital Media Arslan Khalid also dispelled the report. “Bukhari had clarified last year that he was never sent by the government to Israel. This Israel-India-Pak fake news peddlers network is getting so boring and predictable,” he tweeted.
If confirmed, this alleged visit would not be the first contact between the two countries. In 2018, an Israeli business jet flew to Islamabad, staying on the ground for ten hours before returning.
Israel and Pakistan do not share diplomatic relations and last month Islamabad was critical of Israel for its attacks on civilian neighbourhoods in Palestine, involving the most intensive aerial exchanges for years.
At the time, the Foreign Office condemned both “Israel’s heinous attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque” and its airstrikes on Gaza, which it said violated “all norms of humanity & international law” and constituted an “indiscriminate use of force” against “defenceless Palestinians.”
“Strongly condemn Israeli Forces’ attack esp during Ramazan on Palestinians in Qibla-e-Awaal, Al-Aqsa Mosque, violating all norms of humanity & int[ernational] law,” Imran tweeted immediately prior to the outbreak of hostilities.
Both Israel and Pakistan are slated to participate in the US Sixth Fleet’s annual Sea Breeze exercise in the Black Sea. 32 countries will participate in the upcoming exercise near Russian-occupied Crimea, which Moscow has promised to closely monitor.
