UK’s attorney general says he didn’t call Pakistanis ‘corrupt’

LONDON: Britain’s Attorney General Dominic Grieve has said that he didn’t blame Pakistanis for electoral fraud and believed that Pakistanis make highly important contribution to Britain’s national life.
Dominic Grieve said that the Daily Telegraph had misreported his interview in which the Attorney General allegedly said that the Pakistani community was involved in vote fraud because they “come from backgrounds where corruption is endemic”.
In his first interview after the government’s chief legal adviser made national headlines, leading to calls for his resignation from the government post, Dominic Grieve told ‘The News’ in an exclusive interview that the Daily Telegraph had carried a misleading headline and “you can’t find anything in the interview that is said in the headline”.
Dominic Grieve was part of around 200 guests invited by Pakistan’s High Commissioner to the UK Wajid Shamusl Hasan to celebrate the festive season of Christmas and New Year.
Dominic Grieve went on: “It was frankly an offensive headline. And that’s the reason why I was troubled so much and I issued an apology because I could see that any self-respecting British Pakistanis could be offended by those alleged remarks. I have spent the last ten years making a lot of friends in the Pakistani community and I also have the pleasure of visiting Pakistan several times – a country that I like very much. I have all sorts of friends in the Pakistani community.”
He said that in his interview with The Telegraph, he was touching upon the issue of electoral fraud in the UK and why it was important to make efforts to safeguard the integrity of Britain’s electoral process. “Now, electoral fraud is carried out by individuals, not communities. I have to acknowledge that within my won area which I represent this has been an issue within the Pakistani community and we need help of the Pakistani community to make sure that it doesn’t happen. It’s something I think we shouldn’t ignore. But that wasn’t the headline in the Daily Telegraph and I wasn’t suggesting what was attributed to me from my point of view and I found it very painful and embarrassing. These were not at all my views and if these were my views, why I would spend the last ten years making friends in the Pakistani community.”
He said that Pakistani, like other immigrant communities, made an important contribution not only within the areas where they had settled but for the whole nation. “Within my own constituency, I have a substantial number of Pakistanis living and most of them are professionals - lawyers, judges and doctors. Some of them are close friends and they are making very important contribution to our national life. As far as I am concerned, the message I have been putting out in the last ten years to young people is to engage is on our politics. I have mentored many Pakistani youth who have gone on to next level of politics and I will continue doing that,” he said.
Earlier welcoming the guests Pakistan High Commissioner to UK Wajid Shamsul Hasan said that huge presence of dignitaries and members of cross section of society endorsed the importance of the happy occasion as a manifestation of interfaith harmony that Pakistan was overly committed to as a global mission.
Conveying to the guests the warmest Christmas greetings from President of Pakistan Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif to the entire Christian community, High Commissioner said their special messages resonated the historic commitment of the founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah that in his Pakistan all citizens would be equal, they would enjoy equal rights and they would be free to go to their churches, temples, mosques and any other places of worship.