KARACHI, 11 July — Pakistan’s former Prime Minister and leader of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party, Benazir Bhutto, has served notice on the country’s Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar for writing about her and husband Asif Zardari to the American Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Government sources said the foreign minister had decided to ignore the notice, and would prefer to answer it when she files a proper case against him.
Benazir, the sources said, took serious exceptions to the contents of the foreign minister’s letter, denying that the British government had supplied some 22,000 documents about corruption charges against her and her husband. “Britain has neither handed over these documents, nor has promised to do the same,” Benazir said in the notice, served through her lawyer, Nayyar Bukhari.
She denied, in the meantime, rumors about a deal between Zardari and the government. “I know my husband. He is a man of principles.
He would never like to cut a deal with the government. He has already spent almost eight years in jail, but he has refused to bow.”
Media reports, meanwhile, suggested that a former civil servant, Salman Farooqi, had agreed to become approver against Zardari. Farooqi had fled to America after the removal from office of the Benazir government in November 1996. He was one of the principal secretaries to Zardari.
Reports had also been circulating here that the former chief of the Pakistan Navy, Adm. Mansurul Haq, now in custody of the Accountability Bureau, may also turn approver against Zardari in the submarine deal. Sources said that a team of investigators would fly to United States soon to bring Farooqi home.
