What Really Happened to Honzagool?

Recent developments in connection with the American bombardment of the terrorist training camps of Osama bin Laden have made it easier to explain what really happened to Honzagool, the mother of my daughter, Shamema, 16 years ago and why Honzagool has not been heard from since.

When our case came to trial in 1982 after several adjournments, the translator who had been hired by the court through the Columbia University Translation Services, whose name was Raja Ehsan Aziz, brought with him a group of other Pakistanis, all of whom supposedly came in support of Honzagool.

Honzagool, mother of Shamema, is presently under control of members of the Jamaat-e-Islami Political Party in Pakistan, which burned Clinton in effigy last week.


Shemema, daughter of Honzagool, being held prisoner in Jerry Falwell's Liberty Christian Academy in Lynchburg Virginia.


After speaking to several of them, I realized that these were not typical Pakistanis, but rather were politically oriented and rabidly anti-American. I tried to inform Judge Mercorella through my counsel that these were dangerous people, to no avail.

At that time, however, I mistakenly believed that they were with the People's Party of Benazir Bhutto. I believed this because, at that time, the People's Party was a left-wing pro-Soviet opposition Party, and these people seemed like them. The Jamaat-e-Islami, which was a right wing party, was essentially in power at that time, because they were supporters of General Zia-ul-Haq, the President of Pakistan. General Zia-ul-Haq was pro-American and these people in the court certainly were not pro-American.

However, all that changed with the assassination of General Zia-ul-Haq. He was killed by a highly sophisticated nerve gas bomb, which blew up in the cockpit of an aircraft where he was a passenger. The nerve gas blinded and disabled the pilots, sending the aircraft crashing headlong into the ground. All passengers were killed instantly, including not only General Zia-ul-Haq but also the United States Ambassador to Pakistan, plus a number of other American officials.

The United States, still an ally of Pakistan, sent an FBI team to investigate. The FBI was able to determine who set the bomb. Several FBI investigators were quoted as saying that everybody agreed as to how it was done and who did it. However, the results of the investigation were never revealed.

President Clinton burned in Effigy by Members of the Jamaat-e-Islami Party


Honzagool, mother of Shamema, is presently under control of members of the Jamaat-e-Islami Political Party in Pakistan


The reason was made clear: This was the work of a government. No private individual possessed the knowledge or the expertise to set off a nerve gas bomb of this type. In addition, who ever did this had to smuggle the bomb onto a heavily guarded presidential aircraft, which had been under 24-hour military watch. No private person could have done all this. It had to be a government.

There was no shortage of likely suspects. Pakistan at that time was surrounded by enemies. A Soviet appointed government was in power in Afghanistan. India had an anti-American and pro-Soviet government. There was also the Soviet Union itself, which clearly possessed the sophisticated weapons necessary to kill Zia-ul-Haq. All of these entitles, Afghanistan, India and the Soviet Union, had made it abundantly clear that they wanted General Zia-ul-Haq dead.

Finally, there was the government of Pakistan itself. Although this was the least likely possibility, it was certainly possible that the Government of Pakistan had killed its own President.

All this was covered up for two reasons. (1) After the death of General Zia-ul-Haq, the leader of the opposition, Benazir Bhutto, came to power. Benazir felt that General Zia-ul-Haq had ordered the execution of her father, the former Prime Minister Bhutto, and therefore she had made no secret of the fact that she wanted General Zia dead. She publicly expressed joy at the assassination of General Zia-ul-Haq. She had no inclination to catch the culprits and bring them to justice.

However, there was another reason why the identities of the killers of General Zia-ul-Haq have never been revealed: Almost without doubt, this was the work of either Afghanistan, India or the Soviet Union. If it were proven that, for example, India had set the bomb, Pakistan would have a moral obligation to declare war on India. Nobody in Pakistan wants to fight a fourth war with India, even though Pakistan would be the favorite to win that war. (Although India has a much larger population, Pakistan and its people have a militaristic tradition such that, on the battlefield, one Pakistani is easily worth ten Indians. Mahmut of Ghazni used to conquer India every winter, only to retreat back into what is now Pakistan when the Summer in India got to hot for him. He did this more than ten years in a row, and never lost a battle to the Indians.)

Probably, India did not kill General Zia-ul-Haq. Probably, the actual killers were agents of Afghanistan in possession of sophisticated Soviet technology. Since General Zia-ul-Haq was supplying arms and ammunition to the mujahideen, the freedom fighters that were trying to oust the Soviet backed government of Afghanistan, Afghanistan had a strong motivation to want to kill General Zia-ul-Haq.

However, if the Afghans thought that by assassinating General Zia-ul-Haq, their problems with Pakistan would be solved, they were mistaken. Although Benazir Bhutto, who was then clearly pro-Soviet, came to power, she was merely the leader of a weak coalition. Her views soon shifted more towards the center. She was no longer anti-American. She started behaving like a normal world leader. Moreover, she really did not have much say in the matter. The Afghan freedom fighters were getting their weapons primarily from Darra, a village in the tribal area which, although geographically part of Pakistan, has never been under the governmental control. Even the army of Pakistan would not be able to take and hold Darra. There are no police or courts in Darra. The area is under the control of the local "Maliks" or tribal leaders.

As a result, there was nothing Benazir could do to stop the Afghan mujahidin from using Pakistan territory as a staging area to plan their attacks on the Government of Afghanistan. Benazir also could do nothing to stop the three million Afghan refugees from streaming into Pakistan, since the refugees entered primarily through the tribal territories which were not under government control, or through Chitral, walking right in front of the house of my wife, Honzagool. When Benazir was campaigning for Prime Minister of Pakistan, she promised to send these three million refugees back to Afghanistan. However, when she finally got into power, she found that she could not do so.

The main point is that General Zia-ul-Haq, the President of Pakistan, was assassinated by somebody. I do not know who that somebody is, but I do know that Louis Freeh, Director of the FBI, knows who that somebody is. Mr. Freeh is keeping this information a secret. Somebody should ask him about this.

After the assassination of General Zia-ul-Haq, the Jamaat-e-Islami, which had seemed to be pro-American as long as General Zia was alive, showed their anti-American true colors.

I found out in 1983 that I had been mistaken in my belief that Raja Ehsan Aziz and his group had been members of the People's Party. I found out that in reality all the members of his group were in the Jamaat-e-Islami. The way I found this out was that when I was in Chitral, Pakistan in 1983, Raja Ehsan Aziz came to Chitral and went to a meeting of the Chitral Bar Association and spouted his Jamaat-e-Islami anti-American rhetoric. As a result, all the lawyers in Chitral found out what Raja Ehsan Aziz really was, and they told me about this.

Last week, the Jamaat-e-Islami staged political rallies in Pakistan in which President Clinton was burned in effigy. The Jamaat-e-Islami's supports Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and are even sending Pakistani children to fight for the Taliban in Northern Afghanistan.

Members of the Jamaat-e-Islami Political Party have been associated with the bombing of the World Trade Center and the killing of CIA employees in Virginia. The Jamaat-e-Islami Political Party in Pakistan also has possession and control of my wife, Honzagool, in Pakistan, which explains why for the past 16 years my wife has not been able to return to America to be with our daughter, Shamema. Meanwhile, Shamema herself has been kidnapped by members of the Jerry Falwell group in Lynchburg, Virginia and they have her enrolled in Jerry's Christian fundamentalist religious academy, the "Liberty Christian Academy".

Thus, my wife, Honzagool, is in the control of a rabidly anti-American Muslim fundamentalist religious group in Pakistan which burned Clinton in effigy last week, whereas my daughter Shamema is controlled by a rabidly Christian fundamentalist group in Lynchburg, Virginia which accuses Clinton of a variety of crimes including murder.

I am just trying to stay alive for a little bit longer by avoiding both of these extremely radical religious groups.

What these two groups have in common is that they are fanatical religious fundamentalists and they are both against Clinton. However, there the similarity ends because these two groups are diametrically opposed to each other.

When Raja Ehsan Aziz came to Chitral in 1983, he met with the lawyers there to try to convince them that my marriage to Honzagool was illegal and therefore she should be married to a member of his group. The lawyers, who included Barq Ahmed and Abdul Wali Khan, were appalled by this suggestion, because they well knew that my marriage to Honzagool was perfectly legal. All of the prominent members of the community where she lived had attended the wedding ceremony, plus more than a dozen prominent Chitralis had signed the marriage certificate as witnesses.

Furthermore, there is no provision in Islamic law which allows some other man not a relative, such as Raja Ehsan Aziz, to come in and grab a woman and then claim that the woman's marriage to her husband is not valid. Anybody who tries to do that would be guilty of adultery, which is punishable by death by stoning.

Since everybody knows this, Raja Ehsan Aziz was not successful in Chitral and, in fact, after staying only one day there, he left. He said that he would return. but never did.

However, only about one month later, Raja Ehsan Aziz was able to get Nazir Ahmed, the feeble minded brother of Honzagool, to smuggle my wife down to Rawalpindi. The way he was able to do this was through Aziz-ur-Rehman, the cousin of my wife. Aziz-ur-Rehman is a member of the Jamaat-e-Islami Political Party.

Raja Ehsan Aziz approached several different judges in Rawalpindi and made numerous efforts over a period of one year to have my marriage to my wife declared null and void. Meanwhile, they had the judge on the case in Chitral, whose name was Mian Hafiz-ur-Rehman, murdered by two brothers of Sultan Murad, another member of the Jamaat-e-Islami. Sultan Murad, who lives in Joghur, Chitral, made a false accusation that a petrol pump station owner in Joghur had killed the judge over a love triangle. The petrol pump operator spent months in jail, but was finally cleared.

Finally, in 1984, Raja Ehsan Aziz, found a corrupt judge who was paid a bribe so that my wife could be married to Raja Abdul Rashid, the cousin/brother of Raja Ehsan Aziz, the next day. (They did not bother with the compulsory three month period of Idaat. Under Islamic law, a divorced woman must wait three months before re-marrying and, during that three months, her husband can take her back. They did not wait the three months).

Raja Abdul Rashid already had a wife and several children. He took my wife, Honzagool, as a second wife for himself.

Raja Abdul Rashid is a political leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami Political Party. He is also a prominent lawyer practicing in the High Court of Rawalpindi.

Honzagool now has three children at last count through this adulterous relationship with Raja Abdul Rashid.

In 1991, a letter came which said that Honzagool would be coming to America to contest the custody of her daughter, Shamema, who in 1990 had been kidnapped by members of the Jerry Falwell group. Honzagool never came. The reason was that the names of Raja Ehsan Aziz and Raja Abdul Rashid had both been placed on the US Embassy Watch List. For practical purposes, anybody whose name has been placed on the US Embassy watch list will never be able to obtain a visa to come to America again.

An American official has told me that Honzagool can have a US visa any time she wants one. She need only walk in the US Embassy and apply.

However, Raja Ehsan Aziz and Raja Abdul Rashid will never be able to get another US visa, and they will never allow Honzagool to come to America unless they accompany her.

I agree in principle with the American policy of not allowing Raja Ehsan Aziz and Raja Abdul Rashid to have a US visa, since they are clearly members of an anti-American terrorist group. However, for my own personal reasons, I would prefer for them to be allowed to come here, so that my wife, Honzagool, can try to see her daughter Shamema whom she has not seen in 16 years. I do not believe that the Jerry Falwell Group will allow Shamema to see her mother even if Honzagool comes, however.

Ismail Sloan


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