Bhutto appeals against Swiss sentence
The former Pakistani prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, has filed an appeal against a Swiss magistrate's decision sentencing her and her husband for money laundering.
Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari both received six-month suspended jail sentences earlier this month.
Bhutto’s spokesman said her lawyers had filed the appeal on Wednesday.
Daniel Devaud, an investigating magistrate in Geneva, sentenced the pair using his discretionary powers on August 5.
The couple were accused of receiving multi-million dollar kickbacks in exchange for handing out a contract to a Swiss firm during Bhutto’s second term in office from 1993-1996.
The case, opened in 1998, involved the Geneva-based Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS), the world’s biggest verification, testing and certification services group.
The money was allegedly deposited in Swiss banks, and accounts belonging to the Bhuttos were frozen following an official Pakistani request in 1997. The Geneva authorities launched their own investigation into money laundering a year later.
Devaud later said there was around $10 million (SFr13.5 million) involved, equivalent to six per cent of the SGS contract.
Legal assistance
If Devaud’s verdict were to be upheld on appeal, the money would likely be transferred to Pakistan. Bern and Islamabad already have a legal assistance agreement under which they exchange information relating to the case.
Devaud’s ruling came after five years of investigations and shortly before he stepped down from his post as a magistrate in Geneva.
Bhutto’s Swiss lawyer, Dominique Poncet, described Devaud’s decision to sentence the couple as “rubbish”.
“He can only [hand down a sentence] if the facts are proven, which is not at all the case,” he told swissinfo.
But according to Jacques Python, a Swiss lawyer working for the Pakistani government, a Geneva investigating judge has discretionary powers allowing him to hand down sentences of up to six months.
“By issuing the sentences, Daniel Devaud remained within his rights as permitted under the Geneva code of civil procedure,” he told swissinfo.
Denied
Python said the decision was not surprising, since the Bhuttos had never agreed to answer any questions from the Geneva authorities, and had never formally denied the charges being investigated by the magistrate.
“The documented evidence proves beyond reasonable doubt that the money paid as a commission by SGS and a subsidiary was received by Mrs Bhutto and her family,” he said.
Bhutto’s lawyer, Poncet, said his clients would appeal the decision and let the canton Geneva prosecutor decide if the case should go to court.
The lawyer added that Bhutto was prepared to face a court and defend herself against the charge, which she had not been able to do until now.
The former prime minister has been living in exile in London and the Middle East, and refuses to return to Pakistan for fear of arrest. Her husband has been held in a Pakistani prison since 1996.
swissinfo with agencies
Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto has lodged an appeal against a Swiss conviction for money laundering.
The Geneva investigating magistrate, Daniel Devaud, sentenced them within his discretionary powers to a six-month suspended prison sentence in early August.
The money allegedly came from multi-million dollar kickbacks paid into Swiss bank accounts by the Geneva-based testing and verification group, SGS, in exchange for lucrative Pakistani inspection contracts.
The Bhuttos deny the charges.
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