ISLAMABAD: The Rawalpindi Accountability Court reopened on Friday an assets reference against former president Asif Ali Zardari and summoned him on April 27 to respond to the decision to reopen the case.
The National Accountability Bureau’s Special Prosecutor Raja Khurram Ejaz urged the court to reopen the reference and said Mr Zardari’s presidential immunity expired after he had left the office and he could now be tried.
The reference against the former president was closed in 2010.
NAB spokesman Nawazish Ali declined to make any comment on the matter because, he said, the matter was sub judice.
In the reference, Mr Zardari and his slain wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, were accused of illegally acquiring assets. The case was also tried in a Swiss court.
Last year, the Islamabad Accountability Court cleared the PPP co-chairman in three corruption references filed by NAB 17 years ago. But he still faces the SGS and Cotecna references.
Talking to Dawn, Mr Zardari’s lawyer Senator Farooq Naek said he would appear before the Rawalpindi court on April 27 on behalf of his client.
According to sources, the reopening of the reference was necessary to seek mutual legal assistance from Switzerland for repatriation of Mr Zardari’s assets for which the government had recently written to the Swiss authorities.
The Swiss authorities have been informed that the authorities in Pakistan are conducting an investigation against Mr Zardari and others with the objective of obtaining a penal judgement and confiscating a specific asset — a jewellery set.
Although Pakistan and Switzerland do not have a treaty on mutual legal assistance they are bound by an extradition treaty of November 1880, amended on several occasions since then, says a letter.
Demanding the repatriation of the asset, the government also informed the Swiss authorities that the former president had disowned the jewellery set in November last year.
Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2015
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