ISLAMABAD, 12 September 2005 — A Pakistani anti-corruption court has ordered the arrest of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s husband for failing to attend hearings in trials over charges that he skimmed off kickbacks in awarding government contracts, a lawyer said yesterday.
The court issued a warrant for Asif Zardari on Saturday in Rawalpindi, a city near the capital Islamabad, Zardari’s lawyer Farooq Naek said.
“We filed an application that Zardari has had a heart operation and that he cannot come, but the court rejected it,” Naek said.
Zardari is at a US hospital after undergoing angioplasty, said Nazir Dhoki, a spokesman for Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party in which Zardari is a senior figure.
The former lawmaker and government minister was released last December from eight years in prison over other corruption cases after the Supreme Court granted him bail.
He later traveled to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where Benazir had been living since 1999 to escape arrest at home for corruption cases against her.
Benazir was twice elected prime minister in the 1980s and ‘90s — but both times her government was dismissed over allegations of misrule and corruption.
Benazir’s party joined hands with other opposition groups in a countrywide strike on Friday to press demands for President Pervez Musharraf to step down.
The same day, Musharraf who seized power in 1999 in a bloodless coup, in an interview with The Associated Press, praised Benazir’s party but said the constitution bars a third term as prime minister.
Fighter Jet Crashes, Pilot Killed
A Pakistan Air Force fighter jet crashed yesterday during a training mission in the central province of Punjab, killing its pilot, a military spokesman said.
“It was a Mirage aircraft,” Wing Commander Tariq Mahmood said. “The crash was fatal.”
The jet came down in the town of Payee Khel, about 200 km southwest of the capital Islamabad, he said, adding that the cause of the crash was being investigated.
This was the second French-built Mirage aircraft to have crashed over the past fortnight. On Aug. 25, a pilot successfully ejected over southern Sindh province.
