Musharraf 'agrees' to drop graft charges against Benazir

Islamabad: President Pervez Musharraf, has agreed to drop corruption charges against Benazir Bhutto to allow her to return to Islamabad as part of a power-sharing deal, the former prime minister has claimed.

Benazir, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, who lives in self-imposed exile in London, and Gen Musharraf, who is beset by challenges to his eight-year rule, are near to a deal that would pave the way for the general to be re-elected as president and Benazir to return to contest parliamentary elections.

The former prime minister, who was twice dismissed amid allegations of corruption, had demanded immunity as part of the deal.

"The issue of immunity has been overcome - all parliamentarians between 1988 and 1999 against whom charges have not been proven will be immune from further prosecution," Benazir said.

The deal would make up part of a "constitutional package" requiring a two-thirds majority in the national assembly. It would include a provision allowing the general to rule for another five-year term. However he would have to surrender his military role and the uniform that helped bring him to power when he deposed Nawaz Sharif in 1999.

Officials in Islamabad said that the legislation was being drawn up, while an election was expected between September 15 and October 15.

Opposition movement

Gen Musharraf, who sparked a vigorous opposition movement earlier this year when he attempted to sack the chief justice, faces numerous legal challenges to his plan to extend his rule and so has sought an alliance with Benazir to shore up his position. He once called Benazir a "thief" and vowed to prevent her from re-entering Pakistan.

He blamed Benazir and Sharif for the corruption and economic problems that nearly bankrupted the country in the 1990s, when each politician took two short-lived turns as prime minister. The deal has been backed by America and Britain in the belief that Gen Musharraf should broaden his democratic appeal by forming a government with Benazir's party, considered both secular and liberal. Sharif opposes it.

Bhutto, 54, whose father was hanged by the late dictator Gen Zia-ul-Haq, faces opposition to the deal by members of her own party who say that the PPP has been tarnished by compromising with a military ruler. However, she has argued that the deal will be part of a transition to democracy.

The deal risks provoking public anger over Benazir and other politicians not having to answer to serious corruption allegations.

Pakistani investigators claimed that Benazir's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, opened bank accounts in Geneva in the mid-1990s through which they say he passed $40 million (Dh152 million) of the $100 million he allegedly received from payoffs from foreign companies doing business in Pakistan.

In 2004 Swiss authorities also charged Benazir with alleged money-laundering of $11.7 million in purported bribes.