Zardar Report by corruption International Centre for Asset Recovery

Source : http://www.assetrecovery.org/kc/node/2200e2b6-444c-11de-9627-1d322f879051.0;jsessionid=3FE32A47D0A09935AB08390E11EA882D

 

Chronology:

1988: Benazir Bhutto elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, the first woman to lead a Muslim country.

 

1990: Bhutto was dismissed by President Khan on allegations of corruption and misrule.

 

1993: Bhutto became Prime Minister for a second time.

 

1996, July: Bhutto appointed Asif Ali Zardari as Minister of Investment.

 

1996, November 5: Bhutto dismissed for the second time by President Laghari on allegations of gross corruption and misrule.

 

Corruption Allegations

Among them are the appointment of 26,000 party supporters to state jobs and state-owned banks during Bhutto's term as Prime Minister, unsecured government loans to 50 large projects  through which Bhutto and Zardari benefitted by having loans given to frontmen. In total, Zardari received £10 million in investment funds in three new sugar mills. Zardari received a kickback amounting to 40 million rupee on a contract involvng the Pakistan Steel Mill. 1

 

1994: Bhutto influenced the award the preshipment verification contract to a Swiss corporation Société Générale de-Surveillance (SGS) and its then subsidiary Cotecna in return for consultancy fees (kickbacks) of 6 percent and 3 percent to two Bhutto and Zardari controlled companies in British Virgin Island (BVI) under the names Bomer Finances Inc and Nassam Overseas Inc. Money paid to Swiss bank accounts linked to these companies amounted to $12 million. In the same year, it is also alleged that a commission of 7 percent was paid on importation of $83 million worth of tractors from Poland. Zardari's Caribbean company, Dargal Associated received this payment, which was confirmed by Ursus Tractors of Poland. 2

 

1994: Zardari received bribes amounting to $10 million through a shell company Capricorn Trading from a businessman Razzak Yaqub trading under the name A.R.Y. International Exchange in exchange for an exclusive import license of gold into Pakistan. Yaqub shipped more than $ 500 million in gold to Pakistan over a period of three years, while Zardari benefitted through bribes paid into the Dubai and Swiss Citibank accounts, which were opened with the assistance of the Swiss lawyer Jens Schlegelmilch. In total Zardari received over $ 40 million. 3

 

1996: Bhutto and Zardari allegedly demanded a 5 percent 'remuneration' in $ 4 billion contract involving purchase of fighter jets, in which three French companies were involved, namely: Dassault Aviation, Snecma, and Thomson-CSF. The 5 percent was to be paid to Marleton Business S.A., one of Zardari's British Virgin Island companies. The deal collapsed when Bhutto was deposed. 4

 

1997, October: Swiss government began a probe into Swiss involvement in Bhutto's corrupt SGS/Cotecna deal, and moved to freeze $ 13.7mil USD in Swiss bank accounts owned by Bhutto, Zardari, and family. In August of 1998, a Swiss Magistrate wrote an opinion urging Pakistani authorities to indict Bhutto themselves using evidence gathered in Switzerland. In April of 1999, an Accountability Court in Lahore sentenced Bhutto and Zardari on corruption charges to five years in jail, $8.6mil USD in fines, and disqualified Bhutto from politics for twenty-one years.

 

Bhutto appealed this conviction to the Pakistani Supreme Court, which reversed the lower court ruling and remanded the case back to a different Accountability Court, deeming the initial sentence, "politically motivated."

 

2003: In Switzerland an investigating magistrate judge found both Bhutto and Zardari guilty of aggravated money laundering in connection to the SGS/Cotecna probe. Bhutto's attorneys appealed and had this conviction overturned on procedural grounds, because the investigating magistrate had not conducted a hearing in determining this verdict. Additional charges were raised by another Swiss magistrate in July of 2004, thereby reopening the case.

 

2003: The Swiss magistrate found that during her second term as Prime Minister Bhutto enriched herself and her husband with kickbacks from a government contract with two Swiss companies. 5

 

2007, October: President Musharaff granted blanket immunity for past corrupt actions, shielding many public officials and members of the government from prosecution. This applied to Bhutto and Zardari, though not to political opponent Nawar Sharif. Bhutto returned to Pakistan and subsequently re-entered into Pakistani politics.

 

A Lahore High Court chose to reserve judgment on the initial SGS/Cotecna case that had been remanded from the Supreme Court, fearing another Bhutto appeal on the grounds of political bias.

 

2007, December: Following the assassination of Bhutto's in December of 2007, both the Pakistani and Swiss charges relating to the SGS/Cotecna case were dropped. Probes into Zardari's actions in relation to this case are still ongoing. Altogether, it is believed that the government of Pakistan lost over US $ 2 billion in potential revenues because of Bhutto's corruption.

 

 
Notes
Raymond W. Baker (2005) Capitalism's Achilles Heel, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Raymond W. Baker (2005) Capitalism's Achilles Heel, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. page 79
Raymond W. Baker (2005) Capitalism's Achilles Heel, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Raymond W. Baker (2005) Capitalism's Achilles Heel.
Dean Nelson and Ghulam Hasnain, 'Corruption amnesty may release millions for Bhutto', The Sunday Times, 14 October 2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2652808.ece