Accountability Bureau condemned

The Pakistan Peoples' Party has condemned the National Accountability Bureau for what it called "deceiving" the people by wrongly claiming that the Swiss Police Tribunal had rejected former prime minister's Benazir Bhutto's appeal against the verdict of Swiss investigating magistrate who convicted her of corruption.

A PPP spokesman said in a statement that a Swiss tribunal in a written order had quashed the finding of the magistrate who found Bhutto and her husband guilty of accepting payback while awarding a government contract to a Swiss firm SGS.

The Swiss magistrate gave Bhutto and Zardari six-month prison terms each besides fining them millions of dollars. But the PPP spokesperson said that Bhutto's Islamabad regime had dropped corruption charges against SGS after concluding that they did not bribe anyone.

"Therefore to allege that lawyer Jens Schelgelmilch was acting as a frontman for Zardari in the SGS is absolutely false and proved by the non pursuit of corruption charges against SGS." The government has denied the PPP claim that Bhutto's and Zardari's conviction had been quashed and claims that the matter rests in a higher court.