Switzerland has released millions of dollars in assets belonging to Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who is expected to be chosen as the new Pakistani president next week, Swiss authorities said. Zardari's accounts were frozen in 1997 at the request of Pakistani authorities investigating allegations that Zardari had received kickbacks while he was a government official and Bhutto was prime minister.
In June, Pakistan's attorney general notified the Swiss that he was no longer investigating Zardari, who leads the Pakistan People's Party and is seeking to replace Pervez Musharraf as president. The attorney general wrote that neither Zardari nor Bhutto had done anything illegal and that the charges had been politically motivated, the Swiss prosecutor general, Daniel Zappelli, said Wednesday. As a result, the Swiss dropped a money-laundering case against Zardari and released his assets, valued at about $60 million.
"For money laundering to be proven, you have to show it was the product of a crime, but we don't have any evidence for a crime committed in Pakistan," Zappelli said.
NEW YORK TIMES
