Pakistan ‘Rewards’ Terror Sympathiser: Former IB Chief Who Helped Osama Sworn In As Minister

The Imran Khan-led Pakistan government on Tuesday (2 April) inducted the country’s former Intelligence Bureau (IB) chief Ijaz Shah, who has been accused of aiding terrorists Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, as the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, ANI has reported.

According to the report, a confidant of former Pakistan president General Pervez Musharraf, Shah has been accused of harbouring terror outfit Al-Qaeda’s leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

Sydney Morning Herald, in its 2012 report, had quoted former Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Ziauddin Butt as saying that Shah had directed to build the three-storied walled compound in Abottabad where Osama was kept until he was hunted down and terminated by United States Forces in 2011.

"I fully believe that Ijaz Shah had kept this man (Osama bin Laden, in Abbottabad) with the full knowledge of Pervez Musharraf," Butt had alleged, as reported by ANI. However, Shah, who served as IB Director General (DG) from 2004-2008, had reportedly dismissed the allegations.

As per a Dawn report, the move to appoint Shah as minister has also put the Pakistani government and opposition, especially the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), at odds as former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto had alleged that Shah was among the people who had hatched a conspiracy to kill her.