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Bhutto
was convicted of corruption in 1998
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ISLAMABAD,
August 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Pakistani President
Pervez Musharraf said late Monday, August 19, that self-exiled
ex-premier Benazir Bhutto would be arrested immediately if she flew
back to Pakistan as planned to contest October 10 elections.
“She
goes to jail” as a convicted absconder, the military ruler told
Agence France-Presse (AFP) when asked about Bhutto’s much vaunted
plan to head home after four years in self-imposed exile to contest
parliamentary polls.
The
two-time former premier, dismissed twice on corruption charges in 1990
and 1996, has been convicted twice this year of absconding as she
failed to return from abroad for two separate graft trials.
The
convictions disqualify Bhutto from the parliamentary elections under a
new electoral law ushered in by Musharraf which bars absconders from
running for office or leading political parties.
Bhutto
launched a legal challenge last week against the law and against her
absconding convictions, and has vowed to return to Pakistan in late
August or early September to press her candidacy.
Musharraf
said if Bhutto went ahead with her plans he would not prevent her
plane landing at Pakistani airports, nor prevent her entering the
country through airport immigration.
“She
goes through in a normal manner and we arrest her and we take her
straight to the jail,” he said in an interview at his official
residence outside Islamabad. “Against Benazir there are dozens
of cases. She better face them.”
Bhutto
was convicted of corruption in 1998 for allegedly receiving kickbacks
worth millions of dollars in a pre-shipment contract to a Swiss firm
during her 1993-96 rule.
The
conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court two years later on
grounds of bias. A retrial was ordered, but Bhutto did not appear in
court on the scheduled date in May, earning her first conviction for
absconding.
Officials
from her Pakistan Peoples’ Party have said three corruption cases,
filed in 1997, were still pending against her. On July 10, the party
cried foul over another absconding conviction against their leader,
charging that it is part of an alleged drive by the military
government to keep her from contesting October elections.
“We
believe that this is part of the government’s drive to push Benazir
Bhutto out of politics, out of the electoral contest,” said Pakistan
People’s Party (PPP) spokesman Farhatullah Babar.
Babar
said both absconding convictions were facilitated by a two-year-old
law, introduced under President Pervez Musharraf, which forbids absent
defendants from being represented by a defense counsel.
“Previously
under the law an accused outside the country could be represented by a
counsel, but the government changed the law forbidding an accused
living abroad to be represented by a counsel,” he said.
“Our
position is that she is not an absconder under the law. Since her
defense counsel is representing her, she is represented in the
court,” said Babar, referring to the previous law which allows
defendants to be represented in absentia.
Musharraf
has accused both Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who ruled for two terms each
in the 11 years that preceded his coup, of ruining Pakistan through
corruption.
Both
are barred from running for a third term as prime minister under
another new Musharraf law which bans two-time premiers from seeking
another stint.
Sharif
stood aside last month for his younger brother Shahbaz to lead
Pakistan’s other opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League.
Shahbaz,
who has been in exile with some 16 members of the Sharif clan in Saudi
Arabia for 20 months, would also be stymied in his homecoming bid,
Musharraf said.
“He’ll
board the next plane and go back to Saudi Arabia,” if he tries to
fly into Pakistan. “He can’t come back.”
Musharraf
said the exiled Sharifs, a billionaire industrialist family, signed a
“confidential” document agreeing to stay away from Pakistan for 10
years. The Sharifs deny any such pact exists.
“They
went because of certain assurances from the Saudi government, on their
own sweet will,” the president said. “They felt very happy leaving
this country and going. You should see the photos when they left and
when they arrived there, how happy they are, so in this agreement, I
know that he won’t come.”
Musharraf
said Pakistan needed new faces in its political arena. “The
whole people of Pakistan want changes of faces, they are fed up with
politicians, they are fed up with all of them.
“So
let’s have new faces, new leadership emerging in Pakistan and better
politics, better democracy.”
Bhutto’s
husband, jailed former senator Asif Ali Zardari, was also accused in
the gold import case, but no conviction was made against him.
Bhutto
and Zardari were both convicted in the 1998 case, which concerned
alleged kickbacks worth millions of dollars from a pre-shipment
contract with a Swiss firm during her 1993-96 rule, AFP said.
That
conviction was set aside by the Supreme Court on the grounds it was
“biased”.
The
three other graft charges pending against Bhutto were all filed in the
courts in 1997 while her rival Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim
League was prime minister.
Bhutto’s
first term as prime minister was from 1988 to 1990. Her second term
was from 1993 to 1996.
