Zardari graft case: Pakistani government seeks time from Supreme Court
By IANSTuesday, May 25, 2010
ISLAMABAD - In a climbdown of sorts, the Pakistani government Tuesday sought time from the Supreme Court to inform it about the fate of a $60 million Swiss money laundering case involving President Asif Ali Zardari.
“I have just got the 300-page Swiss Procedure Code from the federal government and need time to properly assist the court on this aspect,” Dawn.com quoted counsel Kamal Azfar as telling a 17-judge full court hearing of a government petition. The petition sought review of the Dec 16, 2009, Supreme Court verdict declaring the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), an amnesty against graft, illegal and unconstitutional.
The government has hitherto being saying that Zardari enjoyed presidential immunity from prosecution.
Azfar said he would also like to submit documents relating to the outcome of graft cases in Swiss courts against presidents of other countries.
Azfar’s plea came when Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry expressed his readiness to hear the federal government’s review petition first and observed that whatever came out of it would also have effect on other review petitions on the NRO judgment.
The court accepted the plea and adjourned the hearing till June 7, subject to availability of the full court.
While striking down the NRO, the Supreme Court had ordered that cases against all the 250-odd politicians, bureaucrats and armed forces officers that had been closed under it be revived.
While the other cases are slowly being reopened, the government says it cannot move against Zardari because he enjoys presidential immunity.
This was reiterated at a strategy dinner, hosted here Friday by Zardari and attended by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and the cabinet ministers belonging to the Pakistan Peoples Party that leads the ruling coalition.
Former president Pervez Musharraf had promulgated the NRO in October 2007 primarily to enable former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband, Zardari, to return home.
Bhutto was killed Dec 27, 2007 in a gun and bomb attack as she left a political rally in the adjacent garrison town of Rawalpindi.
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June 8, 2010: 12:17 pm
There is clear witch hunt of PPP, Iftikhar Chaudhry is trying to become a nightmare for the Pakistan people’s party. There were several other parties and people who were stipulated to NRO but the entire burden is put on the shoulders of PPP. I wonder how Supreme Court is working blindly, NRO beneficiaries were neither served notices nor given an opportunity to explain themselves, and that conviction in absentia had no standing in Pakistan’s criminal law. Last month, Attorney General Maulvi Anwar-ul-Haq had told the apex court that Law Secretary Justice (retired) Muhammad Aqil Mirza had made it clear that the Swiss cases had been closed and that there was no need for any communication with the Swiss government to reopen the multi-million dollar money laundering cases. But I don’t know what the Supreme Court wants. If it aims to hang Zardari, why not say straightforward, why it is making so much fuss. I beg honorable cheap justice to end the issue, country is facing several other challenges that are of key importance than stupid NRO case. |
 Nazima Shafique |
May 31, 2010: 11:52 am
Unfortunately, matters pertaining to the NRO cases and the 18th Amendment are being tossed around in the media though these are sub judice. Perhaps, to show solidarity with the judiciary, PML-N leader Mian Nawaz Sharif reiterated his party’s demand that the government should not include the beneficiaries of the NRO in the cabinet. If he cares to go through Articles 190 and 199 of the constitution, he will understand that the judiciary does not need his support anymore. It is also pertinent to mention that Judiciary is ignoring thousands of other cases and focusing only on half a dozen cases against PPP stalwarts. However if accountability is mandatory then there should be across-the-board accountability, as many leaders of other political parties have stashed their wealth in foreign banks and invested in other countries’ industry and real estate. Singling out PPP for accountability is totally unjust. |
 Musarat |
May 26, 2010: 11:17 am
The country is being run in accordance with the Constitution and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani will play his role to avoid any confrontation between the judiciary and the institutions. There is no evidence to implicate President Asif Ali Zardari in Swiss money-laundering cases also there was no proof the president had deposited millions of dollars in Swiss banks he allegedly received as kickbacks for contracts. President Zardari is not an ordinary citizen, as immunities are given to him. If he is not accorded the immunities, for sure he cannot function properly. Enough is enough. Enough mud has been slung on the sacred name of Shaheeda Benazir Bhutto and on the President Asif Ali Zardari. These people out there are now all set to use judiciary as the murderous tool for the assassination of this PPP government. |
Shamshad