Islamabad, Pakistan:
Just a few months ago, Husain Haqqani, the former Pakistani ambassador to the United States, brimmed with charm and confidence as he hosted lavish dinner parties for diplomats, generals, journalists and White House aides in Washington.
Now Mr. Haqqani is confined to the regal hilltop residence of Pakistan's prime minister, tangled in a legal battle over a controversial memo that he says has put his life in jeopardy.
Hounded by what he and his supporters say is a vicious smear campaign by a nationalist, right-wing media, and fearful of being kidnapped or killed by the country's powerful spy agency, Mr. Haqqani has spent the past five weeks sequestered in a guest suite in the premier's residence overlooking the capital. He has left the compound just three times - twice for legal proceedings and once for a dental appointment - each time flanked by a heavy security detail.
As ambassador, Mr. Haqqani, a 55-year-old former journalist and Boston University professor, glided about Washington pressing Pakistan's case to Congress and administration officials, and dropping news tips to reporters. Now he feels cooped up.
"I can go out for a walk, but it is essentially like a house arrest," Mr. Haqqani said in an interview.
On Monday, Mr. Haqqani will leave his gilded cage again, this time to testify before a three-judge panel created by Pakistan's Supreme Court last month to investigate the memo. The document, supposedly drafted by the civilian government shortly after an American raid killed Osama bin Laden in May, solicited help in stopping a possible coup by the humiliated Pakistani military.
The government and Mr. Haqqani have insisted they had nothing to do with the document. Pakistan's military has dismissed the idea that it was plotting to take power. But the case has brought tensions between Pakistan's military and its civilian leaders to perhaps the highest pitch since a civilian government was elected three years ago.
The civilian government, while supporting Mr. Haqqani, forced him to resign his post under pressure from the military, and his passport was confiscated upon his return to Pakistan in late November.
Mr. Haqqani says the threats to his life are twofold. First, given the hysteria surrounding the memo and the pervasive anti-American sentiment in the country, he fears that a security guard might pull a gun on him. Salman Taseer, the former governor of Punjab province, was killed by his police guard last January.
And second, Asma Jahangir, who represented Mr. Haqqani in Supreme Court hearings in December, said that the Pakistan's main spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, "might pick him up and torture him," an accusation that intelligence officials scoff at.
The local media are rife with stories reviling Mr. Haqqani as an unabashed lackey of the Americans and foe of the military, the country's most powerful institution. One article last month accused him of taking $100,000 to write his 2005 book "Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military," which was critical of the Pakistani military's links with militant groups.
Mr. Haqqani and his lawyers deny these accusations and insist that his troubles are political in nature, not legal. "The probe is a fishing expedition because no charges have been filed against my client," said Idrees Ashraf, one of Mr. Haqqani's lawyers.
The ambassador's travails have captured the attention of powerful people in Washington.
Senators John McCain of Arizona, Mark Steven Kirk of Illinois and Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut issued a statement last week saying they were "increasingly troubled" by the treatment of Mr. Haqqani. They warned the judicial panel against "becoming a political tool for revenge against an honourable man."
Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokeswoman, said Friday that the Obama administration expected Mr. Haqqani "will be accorded all due consideration under Pakistani law and in conformity with international legal standards." And on Saturday, 16 scholars of Pakistan in the United States urged Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to "to weigh in with key Pakistani leaders" to ensure Mr. Haqqani's safety.
Mr. Haqqani said he chose to return to Pakistan understanding fully that he was putting himself in a perilous and uncertain situation. "Had I not returned, given the murky and volatile political environment, I would have been deemed or described as guilty," he said.
From his perch in the prime minister's guest quarters, Mr. Haqqani said he had limited the number of foreign visitors to avoid raising more alarm and fuelling accusations by his critics.
The walls of the huge suite are painted in pale hues of blue. The sofas and carpets are worn. Two replicas of Pakistani missiles rest on a rack next to a central heating unit. Security officials roam an adjacent corridor, walkie-talkies in hand. Obsequious waiters serve tea and cookies for occasional visitors.
Mr. Haqqani spends his days reading, conferring with his lawyers, and using his laptop and cellphone to keep in contact with his wife, Farahnaz Ispahani, a member of Parliament, the couple's two children attending college in the United States, and friends and journalists.
Wary of potential eavesdropping by the spy service, Mr. Haqqani often drops into a whisper with visitors, eyes darting side to side, and uses hand gestures to make his point.
The three-member judicial panel has until the end of the month to finish its investigation. Depending on its findings, Mr. Haqqani could face a formal trial and, if convicted, prison.
"I cannot remain in this limbo forever," he said. "I would like to get my life back."