Posted on 01/04/2008 11:07:15 AM PST by neverdem
There is a fresh and sordid postscript to Benazir Bhutto's assassination. Tainted by her husband Asif Ali Khan Zardari's penchant for graft and corruption, Mrs. Bhutto was twice fired as prime minister (1990 and 1996). Her closest friends now say she did not appoint Mr. Zardari to succeed her as party leader in case of death. The political testament Mr. Zardari read on television was his recent creation, not hers.
These friends of longstanding had never heard of such a document. Mr. Zardari is known as "Mr. 10 Percent" and is widely reviled as one of the most corrupt political hacks of the last 30 years. As "Minister of Investment" in Mrs. Bhutto's second Cabinet, all government contracts passed through his hands. They were not approved until a kickback was deposited in a numbered foreign bank account. There are cases pending against him in three foreign jurisdictions, including Switzerland, for money laundering.
Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau (NAB) lined up 62 witnesses and 18,000 pages of testimony against Mr. Zardari's corrupt practices. Typical was a case filed before the Lahore High Court charging Mr. Zardari, in collusion with others, "obtained illegal gratification and undue pecuniary advantage in the form of commissions and kickbacks in the purchase of URSUS tractors from Poland."
Trials have been held in several Pakistani jurisdictions without a sentence being pronounced, but Mr. Zardari has been imprisoned twice, the last time for 8½ years, in a forbidding fortress prison near Peshawar. Released in 2004 because of poor health, which included a heart ailment, he has lived in New York for the last two years while undergoing treatment.
None of about 18 corruption and criminal cases against Mr. Zardari was proved in court over 10 years. Benazir Bhutto herself faced corruption charges in a half-dozen cases, which she steadfastly...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
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