KARACHI, 2 September — Allegation that Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Zardari had bought a 5-million pound sterling mansion in England with ill-gotten money, have surfaced again as the official news agency APP circulated a report here that the government in Islamabad had started a thorough probe into the matter and had already received some of the artifacts which were taken away from the country to adorn the Rockwood House, which has now come to be known as Surrey Palace.

A private news agency in fact went to the extent of claiming that the government in Pakistan will seek repatriation of the former prime minister from the United Kingdom or any other country she has been residing in after taking exile in 1999.

Attempts to seek clarification on the subject have, however, failed to yield results. The Bilawal House, Benazir’s private residence in Karachi which also serves as the media center for her Pakistan People’s Party, or from the city of her exile as the operator on the international circuit reported that her telephone numbers have changed.

The government news agency said that Benazir and her spouse Asif purchased the Surrey Palace with the money they received through kickbacks and government contracts during their stint in power between 1993 and 1996. The news agency lifted the story from London newspaper, The Guardian, saying that “an anti-corruption inquiry is poised to bring charges” against the couple over the charges.

A lawyer at the center of a two-year investigation said on Thursday there was “overwhelming proof that Zardari bought Rockwood, a 5-million pound nine-bedroom house set in 350 acres near Brook, Surrey, and “a number of other substantial” homes in London,” said the report.

William Pepper, an American attorney who is advising prosecutors in Islamabad, said the money used to pay for the deals “rightfully belongs to the government of Pakistan”, not Zardari or Benazir. “In another significant development, artifacts left at Rockwood House when it was abandoned five years ago have been delivered to the Pakistan High Commission in London,” the report said. “The belongings, including gifts given to the couple when they were in power, were handed over on Tuesday following a request from Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau to Paul Keating, a building

contractor who was left in charge of the property,” the report said.

The Pakistani mission has confirmed  that it had received artifacts from Rockwood House. “They will be sent to Islamabad,” said a spokeswoman. “If the house did not belong to the Bhuttos, it’s hard to understand why these personal belongings were there. Some of the artifacts appear to be gifts given to them when they were in power.”

Keating, 48, agreed to help with the investigation and has been interviewed in London by the former NAB chairman, Lt. Gen. Syed Muhammad Amjad, and its prosecutor in chief, Farouk Adam Khan. “ Mr. Keating told the NAB that the artifacts arrived in the UK from a property he believes is owned by the Bhuttos in Karachi,” it said.

The goods included a framed picture of Benazir, a commemorative blue plate with her name engraved on it and a plaque with two World War I bayonets. An inscription on the wooden frame says: “Presented to Asif Zardari from Wilkinson’s Swords.” The NAB is also hoping to recover a stuffed Bengal tiger that was delivered to Rockwood, said the report in The Guardian.

Benazir, now in exile in Dubai, has insisted that she knew nothing about the property. However, in a recent interview with a Sunday newspaper, Benazir has conceded that Zardari might have bought it after all.

“Perhaps he did,” she said. “Although he tells me otherwise.” She also distanced herself from her husband’s work. “(He) never interfered in my work and I never interfered in his,” she said.

Progress on the Rockwood inquiry was slow until this year when the British Home Office agreed to give the NAB bundles of confidential documents relating to Zardari’s activities in the UK.“The papers included the findings of an investigation conducted by the southeast regional crime squad, and statements given under oath by Zardari’s friends and business associates during private hearings at Bow Street magistrates court,” said  the report.