Benazir Bhutto
The Corrupted Leaders of Pakistan : Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani, Asif Zardari,
Nawaz Sharif and late Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto
These
are the leaders who made all Pakistani common people a fool for their
personal gain. They love to divert the attention of Pakistani people
from their real problem like education, employment and welfare to war
plagued hysteria.
The rational Pakistanis should understand who their leaders and what credibility they have to rule Pakistan.
From
the very beginning The leaders of Pakistan are fooling its people and
making their own wealth. Let Pakistani people wake up from sleep and
deprivation of their own rights. Pakistani people are to build their own fate not war and terrorism
Lets see the The contribution of Pakistan’s leaders ( Robbers who stole the fate of 150 million Pakistan.
Who is Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani?
Current Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani an Asif Ali Zardari or the Bhutto family ‘s rubber stamp and puppet in the Parliament who On Sept 18, 2004, was sentenced to 10-year imprisonment with a fine of Rs5 million for corruption facing new charges, people have doubt Whether Mr. Gillani will become the person to harken meaningful democratic change in the country or yet another in a string of powerless Presidents and Prime Ministers He was sent to jail by Gen. Musharraf in 2001, serving five years following a conviction over illegal government appointments. He was finally released on 7 October 2006 from Adiala Jail, after spending more than five years in prison. Current Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani was sentenced to 10-year imprisonment
On
Sept 18, 2004, was sentenced to 10-year imprisonment with a fine of Rs5
million for corruption facing new charges, filed against him by the
National Accountability Bureau (NAB) IHC Chief Justice
Sardar Mohammad Aslam put off hearing in the appeals till Dec 4. Mr
Gilani has challenged his conviction by an accountability court in
Rawalpindi in two corruption references. He was to undergo another five
years of imprisonment in case he failed to pay the fine. The NAB had
prosecuted Mr Gilani in the cases of violating rules while inducting
several people on different government posts and misusing official
vehicles and telephones in his capacity as the speaker of the National
Assembly.
Nawaz Sharif’s only agenda was to make money. In order to achieve this goal, he formed/changed laws and policies for his personal benefit and expanded his business empire by misusing his authority as Prime Minister.
when
the army seized power, Mr Sharif was arrested, and eventually sentenced
to life imprisonment on charges of hijacking and terrorism.
The
army has always been a highly powerful institution in Pakistan. Mr
Sharif’s overthrow by General Musharraf in a bloodless coup showed how
dangerous it was for any politician to attempt to curtail its influence.
Pakistan‘s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is scheduled to face charges of corruption in court proceedings opening Friday in a 16th Century fort near
the capital. From
Islamabad, Correspondent Scott Anger reports the new trial comes about a
month after Sharif was sentenced to two concurrent life terms on
charges of hijacking and terrorism.
The
new trial will be the first of three trials involving Pakistan’s former
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on charges that he used his political
influence to amass millions of dollars of wealth.
Anti-corruption
officials with the military government’s National Accountability Bureau
say the former prime minister purchased the Russian-made helicopter but
failed to declare it among his assets.
It may not prove to be the principal act of corruption which we will finally find. Many other investigations are going on. It is a joint (Sharif) family system
they have built up over the past few years while they were holding political office. It is probably one of the greatest industrial empires in Asia. It is a huge
industrial
empire and, as we believe, has been built up primarily on the proceeds
of crime. The poor South Asia nation has been borrowing money for years
from international lending institutions, but has little to show for it. Pakistan’s foreign debt is about 38 billion dollars and most of the country’s 140 million people live in poverty. A majority of the population does not have access to clean drinking
water or education.
Musharraf
had Sharif and his brother Shahbaz tried on charges of hijacking,
terrorism and attempted murder and while Shahbaz and six co-defendants
were acquitted in April 2000, Sharif himself was convicted and sentenced
to life imprisonment.
On
August 29, 1998 then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif proposed a law to
create an Islamic order in Pakistan and establish a legal system based
on the Quran and the Sunnat. Sharif told Pakistanis that the proposed
Shariat Bill was a charter of duties and not power. On October
8, 1998 Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif presented the Shariat Bill
in the National Assembly. The Cabinet decided to present the bill on
October 9, after removing some of its controversial aspects
Nawaz Sharif said: “I congratulate the nation on the passage of the bill which will help create a truly Islamic system”.
On
January 16, 1999 the Nawaz Sharif Government imposed Islamic law in the
traditional tribal areas of the north-west straddling the
Pakistan-Afghanistan border, vowing to impose it throughout the country
The
Accountability Court of Pakistan has also disqualified him from
holding any public office for 21 years, and fined him 20 million
rupees, about US$3,700,000
World Bank Corruption
Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) Vinod Thomas, Director-General
www.WorldBank.org/ieg
Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) Vinod Thomas, Director-General
www.WorldBank.org/ieg
Asif Zardari belongs to a Shi’a muslim family from the town of Nawabshah in Sindh. Asif acquired his high school education from Cadet College Petaro.
That is the only education he has received. However, later while trying
to run for the parliament, that requires its members to have a
bachelors degree owing to the 17th amendment, Zardari claimed to have
graduated from a college in London which did not exist. He is also
called Mr. ten percent for his corrupt activities while his wife was
Prime Minister.
Until his marriage with Benazir Bhutto on 18 December 1987, he was a relatively unknown figure on the political scene of Pakistan.[
Zardari was accused of money-laundering activities in a US Senate report on private banking and money-laundering.
Zardari
remains under criminal investigation in Switzerland over reciepts of
kickbacks from two Swiss-based companies while his wife, the late
Benazir Bhutto, served as the country’s prime minister in the 1990s, a
Swiss judge and two Swiss lawyers close to the case told NEWSWEEK. Judge
Daniel Devaud is to continue investigations despite pressure from US
officials, he is the investigating magistrate in Geneva who has handled
many high-profile investigations into laundering of corrupt payments
through Switzerland by foreign politicians.
Outstanding Legal Cases
The most significant European cases are a Swiss money-laundering inquiry and a British civil case.
But
in 2003, a Swiss investigative magistrate decided he had evidence of
Zardari and Bhutto after pursuing a money trail from offshore companies
in the Caribbean to banks in Geneva to a jewelry shop here.
Judge
Daniel Devaud took advantage of a Swiss law allowing investigative
magistrates to issue a summary verdict if they think the evidence is
strong, and convicted Zardari and Bhutto of money laundering. A new
magistrate reopened the investigation on charges of aggravated money
laundering, a more serious offense based on the suspicion of systematic
criminal activity. “Mr. Zardari denies having committed any crime
whatsoever,” the lawyer, Saverio Lembo, said in an interview before
Bhutto’s assassination.
In
his 2003 verdict, the Swiss judge connected Zardari to a chain of
corruption that began with two Swiss companies, Cotecna and SGS.
Starting in 1994, company executives courted Zardari in hopes of landing
a contract to provide container inspection equipment and expertise to
the Pakistani customs agency, according to Swiss court records.
As
part of a secret deal, the judge found, the Swiss contractors funneled
$11.9 million in bribes into three offshore firms in the British Virgin
Islands and ultimately into bank accounts in Geneva. The nominal owners
of two companies were Bhutto’s mother and brother-in-law, according to
the records.
The
judge found that Zardari owned the third company, Bomer Finance, which
received about $8 million, and that “Bhutto shares with her husband the
assets” and “has power of disposition” over the company, according to
the documents.
In
Britain, the decade-old civil proceedings focus on Zardari. Zardari is
accused of using illicit funds to acquire the 365-acre Rockwood estate, a
$6.5-million property featuring a Tudor-style mansion and two adjoining
farms in the Surrey district. The estate was bought and refurbished in
1995 through trusts in the Isle of Man and Liechtenstein and the
Caribbean firms linked to Bhutto, Zardari and the alleged kickbacks,
according to the lawsuit.
Zardari
steadfastly denied ownership until January 2006, when he acknowledged
he owned the property, according to British court records. The judge did
rule that there is a “reasonable prospect” of proving that funds used
to refurbish the estate were “the fruits of corruption,” according to
the documents.
HOUSE OF GRAFT: Tracing the Bhutto Millions — A special report.; Bhutto Clan Leaves Trail of Corruption
A
decade after she led this impoverished nation from military rule to
democracy, Benazir Bhutto is at the heart of a widening corruption
inquiry that Pakistani investigators say has traced more than $100
million to foreign bank accounts and properties controlled by Ms.
Bhutto’s family.
Starting
from a cache of Bhutto family documents bought for $1 million from a
shadowy intermediary, the investigators have detailed a pattern of
secret payments by foreign companies that sought favors during Ms.
Bhutto’s two terms as Prime Minister.
The
documents leave uncertain the degree of involvement by Ms. Bhutto, a
Harvard graduate whose rise to power in 1988 made her the first woman to
lead a Muslim country. But they trace the pervasive role of her
husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who turned his marriage to Ms. Bhutto into a
source of virtually unchallengeable power.
In
1995, a leading French military contractor, Dassault Aviation, agreed
to pay Mr. Zardari and a Pakistani partner $200 million for a $4 billion
jet fighter deal that fell apart only when Ms. Bhutto’s Government was
dismissed. In another deal, a leading Swiss company hired to curb
customs fraud in Pakistan paid millions of dollars between 1994 and 1996
to offshore companies controlled by Mr. Zardari and Ms. Bhutto’s
widowed mother, Nusrat.
In
the largest single payment investigators have discovered, a gold
bullion dealer in the Middle East was shown to have deposited at least
$10 million into an account controlled by Mr. Zardari after the Bhutto
Government gave him a monopoly on gold imports that sustained Pakistan’s
jewelry industry. The money was deposited into a Citibank account in
the United Arab Emirate of Dubai, one of several Citibank accounts for
companies owned by Mr. Zardari.
Together,
the documents provided an extraordinarily detailed look at high-level
corruption in Pakistan, a nation so poor that perhaps 70 percent of its
130 million people are illiterate, and millions have no proper shelter,
no schools, no hospitals, not even safe drinking water. During Ms.
Bhutto’s five years in power, the economy became so enfeebled that she
spent much of her time negotiating new foreign loans to stave off
default on $62 billion in public debt.
A
worldwide search for properties secretly bought by the Bhutto family is
still in its early stages. But the inquiry has already found that Mr.
Zardari went on a shopping spree in the mid-1990’s, purchasing among
other things a $4 million, 355-acre estate south of London. In 1994 and
1995, he used a Swiss bank account and an American Express card to buy
jewelry worth $660,000 — including $246,000 at Cartier Inc. and Bulgari
Corp. in Beverly Hills, Calif., in barely a month.
In
separate interviews in Karachi, Ms. Bhutto, 44, and Mr. Zardari, 42,
declined to address specific questions about the Pakistani inquiry,
which they dismissed as a political vendetta by Ms. Bhutto’s successor
as Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif. In Karachi Central Prison, where he has
been held for 14 months on charges of murdering Ms. Bhutto’s brother,
Mr. Zardari described the corruption allegations as part of a
”meaningless game.” But he offered no challenge to the authenticity of
the documents tracing some of his most lucrative deals.
Ms.
Bhutto originally kindled wild enthusiasms in Pakistan with her
populist politics, then suffered a heavy loss of support as the
corruption allegations gained credence. In an interview at her
fortresslike home set back from Karachi’s Arabian Sea beachfront, she
was by turns tearful and defiant. ”Most of those documents are
fabricated,” she said, ”and the stories that have been spun around them
are absolutely wrong.”
But
she refused to discuss any of the specific deals outlined in the
documents, and did not explain how her husband had paid for his property
and jewelry. Lamenting what she described as ”the irreparable damage
done to my standing in the world” by the corruption inquiry, she said
her family had inherited wealth, although not on the scale implied by
tales of huge bank deposits and luxury properties overseas.
”I
mean, what is poor and what is rich?” Ms. Bhutto asked. ”If you mean,
am I rich by European standards, do I have a billion dollars, or even a
hundred million dollars, even half that, no, I do not. But if you mean
that I’m ordinary rich, yes, my father had three children studying at
Harvard as undergraduates at the same time. But this wealth never meant
anything to my brothers or me.”
Zardari’s
critics insist he has ascended to power only because of the death of
his wife and has neither the governing skills nor the experience to pull
the country out of its present crisis. His supporters strongly
disagree, insisting he is the best man to bring peace and stability to
Pakistan because of the powers he will inherit from the military regime
of President Musharraf and his role as leader of the governing PPP
party.
Armed
with such sweeping powers, Zardari would become one of the most
powerful civilian presidents in Pakistan’s history. He would have the
authority to dismiss the government, sack the army and intelligence
chiefs, appoint judges and control Pakistan’s nukes
Zardari
refuses to answer questions from political opponents who wonder how he
acquired his vast fortunes given that he does not come from great
wealth. Last week, London’s Financial Times
newspaper reported that Zardari had presented medical certificates to
the English High Court as recently as last year stating he was suffering
from severe psychiatric problems, including dementia. “We cannot trust a
President who is a liar and who does not honor his promises. Before he
was Mr. 10 percent. Now he will become Mr. 100 percent and, who knows,
next he may sell the country,” said Muhammed Iqbal Tanoli,
an Islamabad lawyer who took part yesterday in a sit-in by the country’s
lawyers in front of the parliament demanding Zardari restore the
judiciary.
Pakistanis will now be watching Zardari’s relations with the country’s powerful army.
Zardari
seems to have convinced the U.S. government that he will cooperate more
fully than President Musharraf in going after Islamic militants. So
far, Zardari’s party has alternated between peace deals with the
militants and highly unpopular military operations — the majority of
Pakistanis still view the war on terror as America’s war.
Zardari Corruption Cases Lifted
Pakistan
has withdrawn its support as a civil party in a Swiss probe into
alleged money laundering by Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Asif
Ali Zardari. About CHF60.0mn (US$59.6mn) remains frozen in Swiss
accounts while Geneva’s chief prosecutor decides whether to bring the
case to trial. The probe was started after a 2003 conviction of money
laundering was overturned on appeal. Meanwhile in Pakistan, a local
court quashed the final seven corruption cases outstanding against
Zardari in March, and also ordered the government to withdraw all legal
action against him overseas. As a result, Zardari can now stand for
election in order to hold office.
Corruption allegations still haunt Pakistan’s new power.
Asif Ali Zardari,
the Pakistani politician considered a front runner to become the
country’s next president, remains under criminal investigation in Switzerland over allegations that he received kickbacks from two Swiss-based companies while his wife, the late Benazir Bhutto, served as the country’s prime minister in the 1990s, a Swiss judge and two Swiss lawyers close to the case told NEWSWEEK.
But
Zardari, who has always claimed that corruption allegations against him
were politically motivated, may be using his growing political clout in
Islamabad to pressure Swiss authorities to curtail, or even close,
their long-running investigation into his affairs, say Swiss legal
sources, who requested anonymity discussing sensitive matters.
Zadari,
through a spokeswoman, maintains that the probe is already closed. “Mr.
Zardari feels that you have been misinformed and that the case that you
are referring to is closed,” wrote Farah Ispahani, in response to an
e-mail from NEWSWEEK. “Please be careful about reporting something that
may have been planted.”
Zardari, who co-chairs Bhutto’s political movement and was one of her closest advisers when she headed Pakistan‘s government, has emerged as perhaps the most powerful figure in Pakistani politics
following the resignation this week of President Pervez Musharraf. U.S.
officials say they already view Zardari as one of most important
Pakistani officials the U.S. deals with on sensitive issues such as the
hunt for Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders in volatile tribal areas along the
country’s border with Afghanistan.
But
U.S. officials remain wary of Zardari because of corruption allegations
that have swirled around him for years. In the 1990s, when Bhutto
served two terms as prime minister and her spouse served a stint as
investment minister, Zardari earned the nickname of “Mr. Ten Percent”
because of allegations that he had received kickbacks on state
contracts. He spent more than eight years in jail in Pakistan during
corruption investigations, though he was never convicted of any crime.
The
Swiss investigations were opened years ago, during Sharif’s tenure as
prime minister. His government requested official legal assistance from
Switzerland, where Pakistani authorities suspected that the couple had
stashed proceeds from alleged corrupt activities. The Pakistani
government hired its own lawyers in Switzerland to gather evidence
against Bhutto and Zardari and help Swiss investigators with their
inquiries.
In
2003, these investigations resulted in a series of court orders against
Bhutto, Zardari and one of their Swiss lawyers, Jens Schlegelmilch. The
orders, akin to misdemeanor guilty findings by a U.S. justice of the
peace, were issued by Judge Daniel Devaud, an investigating magistrate in Geneva
who has handled many high-profile investigations into the alleged
laundering of corrupt payments through Switzerland by foreign
politicians.
Devaud’s
orders found Bhutto, Zardari and Schlegelmilch, a Swiss lawyer who had
represented them for many years, guilty of minor money-laundering
offenses under Switzerland’s penal code. Devaud’s orders alleged that,
via obscure companies in the British Virgin Islands, Bhutto, Zardari and
members of their family had received improper payments from two Swiss
companies that were seeking contracts with the Pakistani government.
(Pakistan wanted to hire the companies, Cotecna and SGS, to inspect
cargo shipments before they arrived to ensure that appropriate import
duties had been assessed).
However,
two other Swiss legal sources close to the case, who asked for
anonymity when discussing sensitive information, said they believe the
Geneva prosecutor could continue to pursue the case, given that the
investigation did turn up evidence, which was not exclusively supplied
by Pakistan, of violation of Swiss money-laundering laws. Ultimately,
said one of the sources, Swiss prosecutors have three possible courses
of action: close the case entirely, prosecute it by bringing it into a
superior court or arrange the Swiss version of a plea bargain, in which
money seized by Swiss authorities during the investigation probably
would be confiscated or handed over to charity, but charges would be
settled without any prison sentences.
Benazir Bhutto’s homely dress is not a match of pakistani women
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