Pak Attorney General rules out rigging of Feb.18 polls

Pakistans Attorney General, Malik Qayyum, has rejected allegations that he said there would be massive rigging in Mondays election.

Islamabad, Feb.16 : Pakistan's Attorney General, Malik Qayyum, has rejected allegations that he said there would be massive rigging in Monday's election.

Human Rights Watch released an audio recording, in which it says Qayyum makes the comments about rigging.

The Human Rights Watch claims that Qayyum made the comments over the phone to an unknown person in November.

Qayyum is a close ally of President Musharraf.

According to the BBC, the recording released by Human Rights Watch was reportedly made on November 21, 2007, just after an announcement confirming the elections would be held on January 8, 2008.

The elections, the government says will be free and fair.

The audio, released on the website of HRW, was obtained by it from secret sources and the organisation accused the attorney-general of saying "that the upcoming parliamentary elections will be massively rigged".

Malik Qayyum, however, told The News that the recording was a fake and a conspiracy against him because he was close to Musharraf.

He said the release of this fake audio was a conspiracy against him and the president.

The Human Rights Watch claims that the conversation was recorded when a journalist was interviewing Qayyum and he took another call, putting the journalist on hold. The said journalist was recording the call and thus the conversation of Qayyum with an unidentified person was recorded ultimately.

The HRW press release also claimed that its repeated attempts to contact Qayyum by phone were unsuccessful.

ANI