Benazir calls senior party leaders to London
ISLAMABAD, Aug 11: Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto has not yet decided about challenging her conviction by a Swiss judge in the SGS case.
PPP sources told Dawn on Monday that Ms Bhutto had called some senior party leaders and lawyers to London for consultations before filing an appeal against the judgment of Swiss judge Daniel Devaud, who had ordered six months’ suspended sentence to Ms Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari in a corruption case.
The sources said Ms Bhutto wanted a “strong reply to the government for launching a fresh character-assassination campaign against her.” They said the PPP chairperson would consult her aides “how the army personnel and other government officials involved in getting this judgment, could be brought to Switzerland for cross-examination to reveal the truth.”
They claimed Ms Bhutto had some important documents revealing foreign accounts of some army generals and government officials. Ms Bhutto, they said, wanted to consult her lawyers how these documents could be used for trials in international courts.
They said Ms Bhutto had called Senator Latif Khoso, Barrister Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan and some other party leaders to visit her immediately.
When contacted, Senator Latif Khoso said that he had been invited by Ms Bhutto but he could not go there by Aug 15, saying he was to visit India with Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan.
He said at the moment he was busy in preparing letters to be sent to various lawyers’ bodies and bar councils to apprise them about the facts of the SGS case. He said Ms Bhutto had asked him to do this to prove her innocence in the case.
He said these letters were likely be dispatched on Tuesday.
Senator Farhatullah Khan Babar, when contacted, confirmed that Ms Bhutto wanted some leaders to be present in London in a few days.