NEW YORK - The credibility of Mansoor Ijaz, the principal instigator of the memo scandal, suffered again with the surfacing of court documents that show a European Bank accusing him of running a one-man business operation and obtaining loans that he was later unable to pay back on time.
Documents show that the Supreme Court of the State of New York Judge Charles E Ramos issued a judgement against Mansoor Ijaz on September 25, 2010, after Banca Sammarinese di Investimento (BSI) of San Marino filed a suit for the recovery of a loan obtained by Ijaz and ordered him (Ijaz) to pay $1.4m to a European bank.
The suggestions of financial impropriety follow the emergence last month of a video in which Mansoor Ijaz acted as a commentator on nude women’s wrestling. These scandals are in addition to his contradictory claims about the memo and his inability to produce any email or BBM message that directly links any Pakistani official to the memo he admits to have drafted and sent to US officials on May 9, 2011. Legal experts wonder how such credibility issues would allow Mansoor Ijaz to convince the memo inquiry commission that he is telling the truth about the memo’s origins when he is the sole witness in the matter and the ‘corroborative material’ in the form of BBM messages and telephone logs he presented were so heavily dependent on his personal account and explanation.
In its filings before the court, BSI Bank of San Marino said that it had opened credit lines in favour of Ijaz and his companies - The Ijaz Group Inc and Aquarius - in 2007 and 2008 and Mansoor Ijaz had pledged shares of his companies as collateral, which later turned out to have no value.
The case raises questions about Mansoor Ijaz’s smoke and mirrors approach to business and his using the impression of high-level political connections to obtain money while speaking of his immense wealth to develop political ties.
The Banca Sammarinese di Investimento (BSI) of San Marino told the New York Court that Mansoor Ijaz’s companies The Ijaz Group and Aquarius were only a cover for him and did not really have any current business that the bank could identify or recover money against.