ISLAMABAD: Minister for Interior Affairs Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has ordered an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the grant of a Pakistani visa to Matthew Craig Barrett, the US citizen who was expelled from the country after he was allegedly caught spying on sensitive installations.
Matthew was picked up by Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and police officials in a joint raid on a guest house here. A case had also been registered against two FIA immigration officials, Sub-Inspector Raja Asif and his son Ehteshamul Haq. The police sources said that Ehtesham had been arrested while raids were being conducted to arrest his father.
Nisar had already suspended an assistant director of the FIA, as well as immigration staff that were on duty when Barrett was cleared by authorities at the airport. An interior ministry statement said that action would also be initiated against officials at the Pakistani consulate in Houston, who were responsible for issuing him a visa.
He also issued directions for the formation of a joint investigation team (JIT) for a thorough probe into the matter. The team would be headed by Superintendent of Police (Investigation) retired Captain Mohammad Ilyas and would also include officers from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Intelligence Bureau (IB) and FIA.
Sources have told that Matthew was issued a multiple-entry visa, stamped by Vice Consul at the visa section in Pakistan’s mission in Houston Sajida Altaf Qazi. It was issued on June 22 and was good up to June 30, 2020, allowing Matthew to stay in Pakistan for up to one year at a time. His passport, which was valid for 10 years, would have expired on June 30, 2020, a week after his visa ran out.
The last time he came to Pakistan, things did not go well for him. On June 10, 2011, he was arrested at a residence in Islamabad’s Sector E-11 for overstaying his visa. The police from the Fateh Jhang area charged him under Section 123 of the Pakistan Penal Code — which deals with ‘Concealing with intent to facilitate design to wage war’ — claiming that he had been spotted in a high-security zone where civilians were not allowed. They also claimed that photographs and maps were recovered from his possession.
He was subsequently deported with charges of espionage and barred from entering Pakistan again. At that time, Matthew had claimed that he had a Pakistani wife and two children, and had been living with her family in Islamabad for at least three years. Advocate Abdul Rehman, the man who claimed to be Barrett’s father-in-law and also represented him in court at the time.
This time Mathew had been presented in the court of judicial magistrate Yasir Mushtaq for remand. A US embassy spokesperson in Islamabad had said that the Privacy Act prohibited him from releasing any information about an American citizen without his consent.
