Bhutto's widower cleared of Pakistani graft cases

A Pakistani court quashed the last of seven corruption cases against the widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, his lawyer said, clearing the way for him to hold government office.

Courts this month had dismissed six corruption cases against Asif Ali Zardari, who led his wife's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) to election victory in Feb. 18 polls and is now set to form a coalition government with other parties.

Zardari's lawyer, Farooq Naik, said a court acquitted his client in the last of the cases, all of which he said had been filed for political reasons.

"The truth has prevailed and justice has been done," Naik told reporters outside the court in Rawalpindi city after the verdict was announced.

The case decided today was filed in 2001 and did not fall within the ambit of an October presidential ordinance that wiped out graft charges against Bhutto, Zardari and others, as part of a proposed power-sharing deal.

Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack on December 27. A prime minister and cabinet members must be elected to parliament while Pakistanis convicted of a crime are barred from standing for election.

Zardari has never been convicted but the corruption cases have been hanging over him, raising doubts about his future. He did not stand in last month's polls and had said he was not vying to become prime minister but some party leaders have urged him to go for the job after apparent rifts within the party over who should get it.

Zardari will have to win a parliamentary seat in a by-election if he wants to become prime minister.

The PPP won the most seats in the elections but not enough to rule alone and will lead a coalition with the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, which came second.

Zardari, 51, was a minister in Bhutto's second government before it was dismissed in 1996 over corruption accusations, and in all spent 11 years in jail on various charges.

Both Bhutto and Zardari denied corruption accusations, which they said were politically motivated. Naik said a high court in Bhutto's home province of Sindh had also ordered the government's anti-graft agency to withdraw all cases against Zardari in foreign countries. Both Bhutto and Zardari had faced corruption cases in Switzerland and Spain.

"As far as a Swiss court is concerned ... there is no case in the court, there are only investigative proceedings which are pending since 1998 before the investigating magistrate," he said.

Naik said Swiss authorities would decide if the case should go to trial after completion of the investigation.