GENEVA, 2 April 2008 — Pakistan has dropped out of a ($59.6 million) Swiss money-laundering case against the widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, its lawyers said yesterday.
A Pakistani court quashed the last of seven corruption cases against Asif Ali Zardari last month, clearing the way for him to hold office, and ordered the government to withdraw all legal action against him abroad.
He has been charged with aggravated money laundering by a Swiss court and the Pakistani government had joined the case as a civil party.
Swiss lawyers said the lack of a criminal prosecution against Zardari in Pakistan and the government’s withdrawal as a civil party in the Swiss case had greatly weakened the chances of convicting Zardari under Swiss law.
Geneva judicial authorities have spent more than a decade investigating allegations that Bhutto and Zardari took kickbacks from Swiss cargo inspection companies and stashed the proceeds in Swiss bank accounts. The couple always denied the charges, calling them politically motivated.
The case against Bhutto ended with her assassination last December while campaigning in Pakistan’s election.
Dominique Henchoz, a lawyer for Pakistan, confirmed its withdrawal as a civil party in remarks to the daily Le Temps. “Just because there has been an amnesty for the good of the country doesn’t mean that no crime was committed,” she added.
Pakistan remains a civil party in the Swiss case against a disbarred Geneva lawyer who was administrator of offshore accounts linked to the inspection kickbacks, Henchoz told the paper. She was not available for comment.
Bhutto, Zardari and the lawyer were convicted by a Geneva court in 2003 of laundering $13 million linked to the kickbacks. But that verdict was thrown out on appeal, sparking a wider probe by an investigating judge who indicted all three on charges of aggravated money laundering.
