Islamabad: A top Pakistani army spokesman vehemently denied in a news report on Wednesday that Osama bin Laden would not be taken into custody if he agreed to live peacefully in Pakistan.
"This is absolutely fabricated, absurd. I never said this," Major General Shaukat Sultan said, referring to an ABC News broadcast.
The ABC report cited Sultan as saying in a telephone interview that al-Qaeda chief bin Laden "would not be taken into custody" if found, "as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen."
The recorded comments of Sultan were included in the report, but it was not immediately clear whether he understood that bin Laden was the specific subject of discussion at that point in the interview.
"Pakistan is committed to its policy on the war on terror and Osama, caught anywhere in Pakistan, would be brought to justice," he said.
Asked for a response to Sultan's denial, Jeffrey Schneider, senior vice president of ABC News, said, "We simply played his comments as we recorded them."
The ABC report also featured a former White House counter-terrorism official, Richard Clarke, saying a peace accord, signed on Tuesday by Pakistan's government and pro-Taliban militants in the country, meant "the Taliban and al-Qaida leadership have effectively carved out a sanctuary inside Pakistan."
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