Benazir's conviction condemned

The Pakistan People's Party, struggling to save the political future of its leader Benazir Bhutto, yesterday condemned an accountability judge's verdict, which awarded her three-year imprisonment for abstaining the court proceedings.

On Tuesday, the accountability court in Rawalpindi handed down the jail term to Bhutto, Pakistan's twice elected prime minister, for her continued absence from the judicial proceedings in a corruption case.

Bhutto has been accused of accepting kickbacks and commissions from a Dubai-based company ARY Gold for giving it monopolistic rights to import gold in Pakistan.
Both Bhutto and the ARY Gold deny the charge.

The court verdict is "malafide and illegal," Farhatullah Babar, the spokesman of the PPP told the Gulf News by telephone from Islamabad. "The decision reflects personal bias and malice towards Ms. Bhutto," he said.

"The military regime is getting frustrated by Ms. Bhutto's refusal to quit electoral politics despite all the pressure and victimisation," he said. "That is why it is targeting our leader from every possible corner," he said.

In May, the same accountability court convicted Bhutto to three-year in jail on similar charges of abstaining from its proceedings in another corruption case in which she has been accused of accepting commission from Swiss pre-shipment company SGS.

Babar said that even in the SGS case, the defence counsel pleaded before the court that Bhutto was exempted by the Punjab High Court in 1999 from personal appearance, and she is being represented in the courts through her lawyers, he said.

"But defence counsel's plea was rejected by the judge and the former prime minister was declared proclaimed offender and convicted in absentia," he said.

Bhutto is standing a retrial in the SGS case on Supreme Court orders, which overturned an earlier conviction in the same case two years ago declaring the verdict "biased."

Bhutto went into self-imposed exile in early 1999 when her main rival Nawaz Sharif was in power. Sharif's government had filed several corruption cases against Bhutto and her jailed husband Asif Ali Zardari.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf overthrew Sharif in a bloodless coup in October 1999, but the new military-led government continued to pursue with the cases.

Bhutto, whose government was sacked by the then president Farooq Leghari on charges of corruption and massive irregularities in 1996, faces at least six cases of graft and misuse of power, while her spouse 13 cases including of murder and drugs smuggling.

The other cases against Bhutto includes illegal appointments of 1,339 people at the state-run Pakistan International Airlines, amassing illegal wealth and property abroad, commissions in the import of tractors and accepting kickbacks in awarding a pre-inspection contract to another Swiss firm Cotecna.

Bhutto says the cases against her are victimisation. Babar said the PPP "forcefully condemns manipulation of judicial process."

"Having been unable to secure a conviction on the merits of the case the military regime decided to manipulate the judicial process and convict Ms. Bhutto for absence from appearance and make it appear as though she has been convicted for corruption".

"The ARY Gold has denied any wrongdoing and won a case in the UAE Supreme Court against the Pakistan government which had accused it of corruption in the contract," he said.

The PPP will write letters to the chief justice Lahore High Court, the chief justice of Supreme Court, the UN rapporteur on judges as well as other human rights bodies on how the military regime is subverting the judicial process for political ends, Babar said.

The PPP also urges human rights bodies to take note of this blatant manipulation of judicial processes and perversion of justice by the regime, he added.

Bhutto's party is in the forefront in opposing the military-led government's proposed constitutional amendments, aimed at curtailing the powers of the prime minister and the Parliament.

The PPP is also opposing the recent election orders in which non-graduate candidates have been barred from running in the elections as well as the former prime minister and chief ministers for bidding for the same slot for the third time.

The PPP says that the new orders are aimed to block Bhutto's re-entry into Pakistani politics. The military government is ready to accept the PPP minus Bhutto, Babar said. "But the PPP has rejected this offer," he said.