well lets look at the some of the facts below : -
Asif Ali Zardari (Urdu, Sindhi: آصف علی زرداری) (born 22 July 1955) is the President of Pakistan and the Co-Chairman of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). Zardari is the widower of Benazir Bhutto, who twice served as Prime Minister of Pakistan.
Contents [hide]
1 Member of National Assembly
2 Criminal charges and allegations
2.1 Corruption
2.1.1 Switzerland
2.1.2 Zardari's challenge to his critics
2.1.3 Poland
2.1.4 France
2.1.5 Helicopter scandal
2.1.6 Western Asia
2.2 Psychological problems
3 Co-chairman of the PPP (president of Pakistan)
3.1 Candidate for the presidency following Musharraf's resignation
4 Zardari as President of Pakistan
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
[edit] Member of National Assembly
Asif once served as a member of the National Assembly, and he was at one point the Minister of Environment during his wife's second term as the Prime Minister (1993–1996). Initially he was very interested in the Finance Ministry, but Bhutto opted to put him in a non-revenue generating department instead. During his time as the Environment Minister, he claimed in a televised news conference on STN that every school in Pakistan had had an Environment & Forestry department which had motivated every student to plant one tree.
He also served as a Senator until the October 1999 coup by General Pervez Musharraf, in which Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was ousted and the Senate and assemblies were both dissolved.
[edit] Criminal charges and allegations
In 1990, Zardari was arrested on charges of blackmail, based on allegations that he attached a bomb to a Pakistani businessman, Murtaza Bukhari, and forced him to withdraw money from his bank account.[1]
He was kept in custody from 1997 to 2004 on charges ranging from corruption to murder. He was granted bail and released in November 2004 when a judge released Zardari under great pressure. However, he was re-arrested on 21 December 2004 after his failure to attend a hearing in a murder trial in Karachi.
Former leader of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, wrote that he found Zardari "a likable rogue" who tried to impress with chatter about his real estate and export deals.
Zardari's nickname "Mr. 10 Percent" stems from accusations that he took a cut from government contracts while his wife Benazir Bhutto was in office.
[edit] Corruption
A 1998 New York Times investigative report[2] claimed that Pakistani investigators had documents that uncover a network of bank accounts, all linked to the family's lawyer in Switzerland, with Asif Zardari as the principal shareholder. According to the article, documents released by the French authorities indicated that Zardari offered exclusive rights to Dassault, a French aircraft manufacturer, to replace the air force's fighter jets in exchange for a 5% commission to be paid to a Swiss corporation controlled by Zardari. The article also said a Dubai company received an exclusive license to import gold into Pakistan for which Asif Zardari received payments of more than $10 million into his Dubai-based Citibank accounts. The owner of the company denied that he had made payments to Zardari and claims the documents were forged.
Bhutto maintained that the charges levelled against her and her husband were purely political.[3][4] An Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) report supports Bhutto's claim. It presents information suggesting that Benazir Bhutto was ousted from power in 1990 as a result of a witch hunt approved by then-president Ghulam Ishaq Khan. The AGP report says Khan illegally paid legal advisers 28 million rupees to file 19 corruption cases against Bhutto and her husband in 1990-92.[5]
The prosecutors had alleged that their Swiss bank accounts contained £740 million.[6] Zardari also bought a neo-Tudor mansion and estate worth over £4 million in Surrey, England, UK.[7][8] The Pakistani investigations have tied other overseas properties to Zardari's family. These include a $2.5 million manor in Normandy owned by Zardari's parents, who had modest assets at the time of his marriage.[2] Bhutto denied holding substantive overseas assets.
Zardari and his wife Benazir denied corruption allegations ever since they were first levelled in 1990.[9] In August 2004, Zardari admitted owning the £6.35m estate in Surrey, England, including a 20-room mansion and two farms on 365 acres, or 1.5 km², of land which the Pakistani authorities had alleged was bought with the proceeds of corruption.[10] He was given the nick name "Mr ten-percent" because that was his cut in every corrupt deal which was happening in Pakistan at the time.[11]
French, Polish, Spanish, and Swiss documents have fuelled the charges of corruption against Bhutto and her husband. They faced a number of legal proceedings, including a charge of laundering money through Swiss banks.[12] Asif Ali Zardari spent several years in prison on corruption charges.[13] After being released on bail in 2004,[14] Zardari suggested that his time in prison involved torture; human rights groups have supported his claim that his rights were violated.[15]
[edit] Switzerland
On 23 July 1998, the Swiss Government handed over documents to the government of Pakistan which relate to corruption allegations against Benazir Bhutto and her husband.[16] The documents included a formal charge of money laundering by Swiss authorities against Zardari. The Pakistani government had been conducting a wide-ranging inquiry to account for more than $13.7 million frozen by Swiss authorities in 1997 that was allegedly stashed in banks by Bhutto and her husband. The Pakistani government recently filed criminal charges against Bhutto in an effort to track down an estimated $1.5 billion she and her husband are alleged to have received in a variety of criminal enterprises.[17] The documents suggest that the money Zardari was alleged to have laundered was accessible to Benazir Bhutto and had been used to buy a diamond necklace for over $175,000.[18] The PPP has responded by flatly denying the charges, suggesting that Swiss authorities have been misled by false evidence provided by the Government of Pakistan.
On 6 August 2003, Swiss magistrates found Bhutto and her husband guilty of money laundering.[19] They were given six-month suspended jail terms, fined $50,000 each and were ordered to pay $11 million to the Pakistani government. The six-year trial concluded that Bhutto and Zardari deposited in Swiss accounts $10 million given to them by a Swiss company in exchange for a contract in Pakistan. The couple said they would appeal. The Pakistani investigators say Zardari opened a Citibank account in Geneva in 1995 through which they say he passed some $40 million of the $100 million he received in payoffs from foreign companies doing business in Pakistan.[20] In October 2007, Daniel Zappelli, chief prosecutor of the canton of Geneva, said he received the conclusions of a money laundering investigation against former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on 29 October, but it was unclear whether there would be any further legal action against her in Switzerland.[21]
The money was allegedly stashed in Swiss banks.[22] The public proceedings were required to be dropped against Bhutto due to her death; but the proceedings were still continued against Zardari until end of August 2008.[23] In the end of August, however, all of the cases against him in Swiss courts were closed, leaving him with all 60 million dollars (41 million Euros) restored, which were frozen due to alleged money-laundering case against him.[24]
[edit] Zardari's challenge to his critics
On the news of Chairman Zardari's receipt of $60 million, he quickly denied the allegation. He even declared that he would give half of all the money ($30 million) to any person who proved him the recipient.
[edit] Poland
The Polish Government has given Pakistan 500 pages of documentation relating to corruption allegations against Benazir Bhutto and her husband. These charges are in regard to the purchase of 8,000 tractors in a 1997 deal.[25][26] According to Pakistani officials, the Polish papers contain details of illegal commissions paid by the tractor company in return for agreeing to their contract.[27] It was alleged that the arrangement "skimmed" 103 million rupees ($2 million) in kickbacks.[28] "The documentary evidence received from Poland confirms the scheme of kickbacks laid out by Asif Zardari and Benazir Bhutto in the name of (the) launching of Awami tractor scheme", APP said. Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari allegedly received a 7.15% commission on the purchase through their front men, Jens Schlegelmilch and Didier Plantin of Dargal SA, who received about $1.969 million for supplying 5,900 Ursus tractors.[29]
[edit] France
Potentially the most lucrative deal alleged in the documents involved the effort by Dassault Aviation, a French military contractor. French authorities indicated in 1998 that Bhutto's husband, Zardari, offered exclusive rights to Dassault to replace the air force's fighter jets in exchange for a five percent commission to be paid to a corporation in Switzerland controlled by Zardari.[30]
At the time, French corruption laws forbade bribery of French officials but permitted payoffs to foreign officials, and even made the payoffs tax-deductible in France. However, France changed this law in 2000.[31]
[edit] Helicopter scandal
In 1998-1999, an enquiry was conducted by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament to investigate the matter regarding the purchase of the helicopters. The case involves defrauding substantive sum of $2.168 million and $1.1 million public money. The record shows that the case was not pursued properly nor diligently. FIR No 1 of 1998 was reg